Urgent issue on RAID

[David Zeng]

Hi, all, hope you can help me out. The problem is as below:

Server enviroment:

windows 2000 server
Two RAID control:

1.) PowerEdge RAID II Adapter Bios Version 1.44 Oct 8, 1996
Copyright(c) AMERICAN MEGATRENDS INC.
Host Adapter-0 Firmware Version U.75 DRAM Size=4MB.
This RAID controller has two channels. Channel 0 connects
two disks and these two disk were configured as RAID 1
(mirror). Channel 1 connects 1 DELL PowerVault 200S, which
has 8 disks(34GB). These 8 disks were configured as RAID
5, and were configured into two logical disk.

2.) PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller BIOS1.43 Oct 20,
1999
Copyright(c) AMERICAN MEGATRENDS INC.
HA-0 (Bus 0 Dev 14) Type: PERC 2/SC. Standard FW 3.13
DRAM=32MB
This RAID controller has one channel. it connects 1 DELL
PowerVault 200S, which has 8 disks(34GB). These 8 disks
were configured as RAID 5 and were configured into one
logical disk.

Problems:
1.) We were reported that two disk in the PowerVault 200S
of the first controller were fail. And also see the error
message on the booting screen as below:
"Unresolved configuration mismatch on adapter"
We followed the instruction from DELL Tech Support to
disconnect all cables from the RAID controller card, clear
the configuration on the RAID controller and then re-
connect the cables back, trying to read the configuration
back from disk. When we restart the server, The bad disks'
light shows ok status. But we were not able read the
configuration back from disks in the BIOS of the RAID
controller. And we still see the same error message on the
booting screen:
"Unresolved configuration mismatch on adapter"

Does anyone have any idea how to read the configuration
back from disks or recover it from the controller?

2.) Because we can not recover the above PowerVault 200S
RAID, we still want to get the second porwerVault 200S up.
Well, everyone is/looks ok with the second powerVault 200S
on the booting screen. But we can not see the disk in "my
computer" (this disk used to be "G:" drive). When we
open "disk management" in "computer management", it is
showing "disk 0, basic, 237.05GB, online, unallocated".
All the partitioning information on this RAID is missing.

Does anyone know how to get the partitioning information
back? or is there any way to recover this RAID?

Sincerely,
David Zeng



and fix the problem, unfortunately, it is not successful.

 

[P. Meiners]

Dave
The configuration for AMI adapters are not automatically saved to disk,
but to ram on the card.
You can save the configuration to disk if you use the "power console
plus".
Any possiblity the tech who set this up, saved the config to a floppy
or documented?

If not, I would call LsiLogic ( bought out AMI raid division) directly,
hopefully they will help ( offer to pay if they object to the oem
status).
Dell should not have had you clear the configuration.

Do nothing before contacting AMI...
Possible these were setup by using the automated "easy config" choice;
if this was used , maybe they will resurrect. Do not under any
circumstances format the disks or "initialize" the array, or there is no
possibility of revival.
In the mean time, download the latest drivers and firmware for the
cards, do not apply until tech support advises you to do it. Had a
similar problem with the AMI card with a raid failure which was
corrected by a firmware update. According to the Lsilogic site your
firmware is a lower version. Firmware updates are potentionally
dangerous to an intact array, so do not automatically update.

Mixing up your cables or drives in the slots can destroy a raid...
Mark your cables, as to which cable goes to which adapter channel, to
which backplane connector.
Pull out your disk one at a time, and mark them with permanent magic
marker.

If you can revive your arrays, document every setting you make on paper
and save the file to floppy disk, and a workstation disk.

Worst case senario, a drive recovery service could recover the info.

If the arrays are destroyed and you do rebuild, definitely update the
firmware.
Technically these arrays are outdated, consider new harware.


Paul Meiners

 

[P. Meiners]

David

correction..
"The configuration for AMI adapters is not automatically saved to disk",
the configuration is actually saved to Nvram and to the disk once you
save the configuration during setup.

When the raid bios screen comes up, does it show a logical drive present
If there is an array it should? If not..
When you go into the raid cards setup ctl-m, under view/add config, does
it show an array ? If it does not show at the bios screen, it actually
should not show up in the view/add, curious, if anything shows.

I would definitely get in touch with LSIlogic, they may have tools to
resurrect the array info. Email me directly.

 

[P. Meiners]

David

correction..
"The configuration for AMI adapters is not automatically saved to disk",
the configuration is actually saved to Nvram and to the disk once you
save the configuration during setup.

When the raid bios screen comes up, does it show a logical drive present
If there is an array it should? If not..
When you go into the raid cards setup ctl-m, under view/add config, does
it show an array ? If it does not show at the bios screen, it actually
should not show up in the view/add, curious, if anything shows.

I would definitely get in touch with LSIlogic, they may have tools to
resurrect the array info. Email me directly.