RAID-1 insight needed
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Posted by Ralph Innes on May 7, 2008, 8:35 am
Please log in for more thread options Do you know of a site on the internet where a guy could find a good treatment of RAID? Or, have you had the misfortune, yourself, to troubleshoot RAID problems? Here's what I have: An ECS P4VXAD mobo w/Promise Technology "Lite" RAID onboard. A pair of 30GB HDD in removable drive trays, in RAID-1 configuration. The system has been running with only minor glitches for about 5 years. But now, we're seeing a reluctance to boot up into Windows (98SE), with disparate messages about DLL's, etc. After repeated power-downs and restarts, the system will eventually start. And run O.K. for the remainder of the day. This is my guess (diagnosis): That we have a failing HDD - inability to read a particular part of the drive surface reliably. This is my understanding of how RAID-1 is supposed to work: Data is written to both mirrored drives during a write operation, but is not read back to check it. During a "read" operation, the RAID controller reads from either drive, a sector or 2 from one drive, a sector or 2 from the other, and "stitches" the file together. My problem is, that I don't have a good understanding of how this is accomplished, and understanding stuff is the basis for troubleshooting. Our next step is to insert only one tray (HDD) in the system, and see if it boots into Windows without incident. And, if it fails, to try the other drive. If either scenario is successful, I guess we could say that one drive has become defective. If neither is successful, I don't know where that leaves us. Any insight would be much appreciated. TIA, - Ralph | |||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by kony on May 7, 2008, 11:48 am
Please log in for more thread options If you have not yet, install the raid management software from Promise. See if that indicates any problems. Connect one drive to the motherboard integral controller and check it with the HDD manufacturer diagnostics. Next disconnect, connect the other and check it too. If either drive fails you have found your problem... maybe... removable caddies are themselves another point of possibly failure, intermittent contact can occur so check these drives directly connected to the motherboard via cable, no caddy interface present. If the caddy is the problem then merely unplugging them from caddy and plugging in again could temporarily, or longer-term resolve the problem. If none of these seems to be the problem it is possible you have a case of windows just being windows. Windows will succumb to problems where it ends up not having needed files anymore, resulting from some update, installation or removable of an application or a virus running amuck. Since it would seem that regardless of the problem, windows now does not have the needed files to operate, the first procedure should be considering if there is any valuable data on this array and copying it off if possible. Next do the above testing and if it checks out ok do an installation of windows overtop of itself (as an attempted time saver) or a clean installation if that doesn't work which may lose all files and settings if you need to format the partition. There is another possiblity, that general system instability has caused the problem. Motherboard or PSU failings can result in random error messages, that while loading the OS it could be resulting in a default message that assumes a file problem when it is a minor crash of some sort. Key in differentiating whether this is the case would be whether all the same files are indicated or if it is more random in nature. You can choose F8 key early in boot process and choose to make a boot log which will be made in the root of the OS partition then retrieve that boot log and see what it reports. If all else fails the remaining attempt would be pulling the drives and scanning them separately in another system, or acquiring a 3rd hard drive, connecting to that system and seeing if it can install and run windows (whether that be a clean new windows install or duplicating the old drives to that one if possible... if your choice of dupe utility can't see the drives on the raid controller then connect one or the other direct to the motherboard integral controller). Also keep in mind that a system of that age might not be able to use hard drives over 128GB in size, though I suspect it is new enough and only the OS is older. | |||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Ralph Innes on May 16, 2008, 7:33 am
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>
> If you have not yet, install the raid management software > from Promise. See if that indicates any problems. > > Connect one drive to the motherboard integral controller and > check it with the HDD manufacturer diagnostics. Next > disconnect, connect the other and check it too. > > If either drive fails you have found your problem... > maybe... removable caddies are themselves another point of > possibly failure, intermittent contact can occur so check > these drives directly connected to the motherboard via > cable, no caddy interface present. If the caddy is the > problem then merely unplugging them from caddy and plugging > in again could temporarily, or longer-term resolve the > problem. > > If none of these seems to be the problem it is possible you > have a case of windows just being windows. Windows will > succumb to problems where it ends up not having needed files > anymore, resulting from some update, installation or > removable of an application or a virus running amuck. > > Since it would seem that regardless of the problem, windows > now does not have the needed files to operate, the first > procedure should be considering if there is any valuable > data on this array and copying it off if possible. Next do > the above testing and if it checks out ok do an installation > of windows overtop of itself (as an attempted time saver) or > a clean installation if that doesn't work which may lose all > files and settings if you need to format the partition. > > There is another possiblity, that general system instability > has caused the problem. Motherboard or PSU failings can > result in random error messages, that while loading the OS > it could be resulting in a default message that assumes a > file problem when it is a minor crash of some sort. Key in > differentiating whether this is the case would be whether > all the same files are indicated or if it is more random in > nature. You can choose F8 key early in boot process and > choose to make a boot log which will be made in the root of > the OS partition then retrieve that boot log and see what it > reports. > > If all else fails the remaining attempt would be pulling the > drives and scanning them separately in another system, or > acquiring a 3rd hard drive, connecting to that system and > seeing if it can install and run windows (whether that be a > clean new windows install or duplicating the old drives to > that one if possible... if your choice of dupe utility can't > see the drives on the raid controller then connect one or > the other direct to the motherboard integral controller). > Also keep in mind that a system of that age might not be > able to use hard drives over 128GB in size, though I suspect > it is new enough and only the OS is older. > Kony, thanks for taking the time and interest to give such a detailed response - much appreciated. In preparation for running drive diagnostics, I'd emailed Don to have him take the lid off that HDD tray, to determine which manufacturer's diagnostics to download. He phoned me and said, "I... think... we... may... have... diagnosed... the... problem." He found a scrap of paper, about an inch long, mashed into the female Centronics connector on the rear of the removable drive-tray. Doh! I've been using your well-reasoned approach to diagnose yet another RAID problem, which will be the subject of another post. Thanks again. It's refreshing to know that there are selfless folk like yourself, who'll take the trouble to assist those in need. - Ralph | |||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Harry Unruh on August 6, 2008, 5:33 pm
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Hi Ralph. Saw your username and ... Are you by chance also an X-IBMer? I am and am wondering if you're the Ralph Innes I knew way back in the '70's?? Harry Unruh | |||||||||||||||||||
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>
>Do you know of a site on the internet where a guy could find a good
>treatment of RAID? Or, have you had the misfortune, yourself, to
>troubleshoot RAID problems?
>
>Here's what I have:
>
>An ECS P4VXAD mobo w/Promise Technology "Lite" RAID onboard.
>
>A pair of 30GB HDD in removable drive trays, in RAID-1 configuration.
>
>The system has been running with only minor glitches for about 5 years.
>But now, we're seeing a reluctance to boot up into Windows (98SE), with
>disparate messages about DLL's, etc.
>
>After repeated power-downs and restarts, the system will eventually start.
>And run O.K. for the remainder of the day.
>
>This is my guess (diagnosis):
>
>That we have a failing HDD - inability to read a particular part of the
>drive surface reliably.
>
>This is my understanding of how RAID-1 is supposed to work:
>
>Data is written to both mirrored drives during a write operation, but is
>not read back to check it.
>
>During a "read" operation, the RAID controller reads from either drive, a
>sector or 2 from one drive, a sector or 2 from the other, and "stitches"
>the file together.
>
>My problem is, that I don't have a good understanding of how this is
>accomplished, and understanding stuff is the basis for troubleshooting.
>
>Our next step is to insert only one tray (HDD) in the system, and see if it
>boots into Windows without incident. And, if it fails, to try the other
>drive.
>
>If either scenario is successful, I guess we could say that one drive has
>become defective.
>
>If neither is successful, I don't know where that leaves us.
>
>Any insight would be much appreciated.
>
>TIA,
>
>- Ralph