Comments on: Surviving component failure … http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/ Storage Solutions for Real World IT Professionals Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:54:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.2 Comment on Surviving component failure … by: Neil http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/#comment-361076 Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:44:39 +0000 http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/#comment-361076 Clive, Did I mention to make a backup before you touch anything in your system? How remiss of me to forget this little statement. It's pretty much the standard caveat ... "she'll be sweet" (build the confidence), "but make a good backup before doing this" (sow the seeds of fear), then "just call us back if you have any problems" (completely destroy what little confidence the customer had left) ... then hang up - I can almost see the cold sweats I leave people in after talking them through something complex ... :-) However ... it appears that things are plodding along nicely in the land of the long white cloud and that there is someone else out there who knows a smattering of Shakespeare (which is all I know). As for the crack about meds (and that's a pun in it's own right) ... my editor gets very, very nervous about my sense of humour ... you vill comply or else! (I'll let you guess the nationality I'm thinking about here). Ciao Neil Clive,

Did I mention to make a backup before you touch anything in your system? How remiss of me to forget this little statement. It’s pretty much the standard caveat … “she’ll be sweet” (build the confidence), “but make a good backup before doing this” (sow the seeds of fear), then “just call us back if you have any problems” (completely destroy what little confidence the customer had left) … then hang up - I can almost see the cold sweats I leave people in after talking them through something complex … :-)

However … it appears that things are plodding along nicely in the land of the long white cloud and that there is someone else out there who knows a smattering of Shakespeare (which is all I know).

As for the crack about meds (and that’s a pun in it’s own right) … my editor gets very, very nervous about my sense of humour … you vill comply or else! (I’ll let you guess the nationality I’m thinking about here).

Ciao
Neil

]]> Comment on Surviving component failure … by: Clive http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/#comment-360933 Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:54:38 +0000 http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/#comment-360933 I did jump the fence after my previous post, all fired up and ready to replace the Microsoft driver for the RAID controller with one from Adaptec but just when I was about to start doing that I got a sudden and severe dose of cold feet. That arose from a thought or two about how I was about to swap the driver for the boot device, and I wasn't quite sure how that process would (or should be) handled. So, as I also really didn't want to end up with the server being unable to boot just because I wanted the "excitement" of seeing ASM working properly, I just fired off some additional backups instead and came home to do a bit more reading and thinking. Then it turned out the server had to be shutdown a day later anyway for an upgrade to the building's power supply so I took that opportunity to get back into ACU and found that at long last everything showing up as "Optimal". And there was much rejoicing... After all that I only got around to installing the correct Adaptec driver today and now ASM is working properly. Very exciting indeed! Thanks also for mentioning that "anomaly" in ASM as with that information onboard I barely gave any potential consequences a second thought before merrily "deleting" the hotspare. And all was well in the State of Denmark! (And New Zealand also for that matter.) Hey, where did that crack about me needing to get back onto my meds go? I enjoyed that! Cheers Clive I did jump the fence after my previous post, all fired up and ready to replace the Microsoft driver for the RAID controller with one from Adaptec but just when I was about to start doing that I got a sudden and severe dose of cold feet. That arose from a thought or two about how I was about to swap the driver for the boot device, and I wasn’t quite sure how that process would (or should be) handled. So, as I also really didn’t want to end up with the server being unable to boot just because I wanted the “excitement” of seeing ASM working properly, I just fired off some additional backups instead and came home to do a bit more reading and thinking. Then it turned out the server had to be shutdown a day later anyway for an upgrade to the building’s power supply so I took that opportunity to get back into ACU and found that at long last everything showing up as “Optimal”. And there was much rejoicing…

After all that I only got around to installing the correct Adaptec driver today and now ASM is working properly. Very exciting indeed! Thanks also for mentioning that “anomaly” in ASM as with that information onboard I barely gave any potential consequences a second thought before merrily “deleting” the hotspare.

And all was well in the State of Denmark! (And New Zealand also for that matter.)

Hey, where did that crack about me needing to get back onto my meds go? I enjoyed that!

Cheers
Clive

]]> Comment on Surviving component failure … by: Neil http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/#comment-360672 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:06:31 +0000 http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/#comment-360672 Clive, You will probably find one anomaly that I always find strange, but understandable, in our software. The hot spare drive will probably still be marked as a hot spare. It will have a similar icon to the rest of the drives in the array (indicating that some or all of the disk is in use as part of an array, and you will have an option to "delete" the hot spare. Why? At first I used to think ... why doesn't it just get rid of the hot spare moniker itself? Basically because then you would have a hard time understanding what had happened in your system. We leave the hot spare indicator there so that you can tell that the drive was a hot spare, but is now part of the array (and hence there is something rotten in the State of Denmark). I'd suggest you have a fair chunk of reading to do, and will (because you obviously enjoy typing and are reasonably good at it) come back with some questions. Looking forward to it. Ciao Neil Clive,

You will probably find one anomaly that I always find strange, but understandable, in our software. The hot spare drive will probably still be marked as a hot spare. It will have a similar icon to the rest of the drives in the array (indicating that some or all of the disk is in use as part of an array, and you will have an option to “delete” the hot spare.

Why? At first I used to think … why doesn’t it just get rid of the hot spare moniker itself? Basically because then you would have a hard time understanding what had happened in your system. We leave the hot spare indicator there so that you can tell that the drive was a hot spare, but is now part of the array (and hence there is something rotten in the State of Denmark).

I’d suggest you have a fair chunk of reading to do, and will (because you obviously enjoy typing and are reasonably good at it) come back with some questions.

Looking forward to it.

Ciao
Neil

]]> Comment on Surviving component failure … by: Clive http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/#comment-360647 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:23:53 +0000 http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/#comment-360647 Thanks Neil! ( I like your writing style also. :) I'd come to more or less same conclusion about the driver myself and in fact grabbed the (hopefully) correct version from the Adaptec site about 30 minutes ago, almost immediately before I came back to find your response here. (If you're interested, the driver installed now is aacmgt.sys, version 5.2.0.10237 and is identified as coming from Adaptec. It's also not signed. And then there are a couple of other Microsoft files displayed along with that also whose details I didn't note down.) Anyway I'm so "excited" about being able to see what the darn thing is actually doing that I think I'll jump the fence and update the driver right after I've posted this! I've also grabbed the documentation you pointed to. I thought I already had that file but it turned out to just be something with a similar name. Thanks very much for your response and help. Clive Thanks Neil! ( I like your writing style also. :)

I’d come to more or less same conclusion about the driver myself and in fact grabbed the (hopefully) correct version from the Adaptec site about 30 minutes ago, almost immediately before I came back to find your response here. (If you’re interested, the driver installed now is aacmgt.sys, version 5.2.0.10237 and is identified as coming from Adaptec. It’s also not signed. And then there are a couple of other Microsoft files displayed along with that also whose details I didn’t note down.)

Anyway I’m so “excited” about being able to see what the darn thing is actually doing that I think I’ll jump the fence and update the driver right after I’ve posted this!

I’ve also grabbed the documentation you pointed to. I thought I already had that file but it turned out to just be something with a similar name.

Thanks very much for your response and help.

Clive

]]> Comment on Surviving component failure … by: Neil http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/#comment-360640 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:10:10 +0000 http://storageadvisors.adaptec.com/2009/04/13/surviving-component-failure/#comment-360640 Clive, Wow ... someone who can speak english, type well and knows how to spell punctuation! Enough platitudes ... down to tech support: You have the wrong driver loaded in the system. You are using the Microsoft driver. Go to Adaptec's website, download and install the Adaptec driver. That will at least let you see the card and array in ASM. As for documentation to tell you what you are doing? A good place to start would be the documentation that comes with our newest controllers. The manuals are a darned site better than they were in the 2410 days. http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/user_guides/Adaptec_RAID_Controller_IUG_6_2009.pdf It appears you've had a drive failure which has confused the daylights out of the card. This is not completely unheard of. It also appears that you have successfully rebuilt the array, but you'll see that when you get the correct driver in the system and the card shows up in ASM. If you need further technical assistance we have an online help system "http://ask.adaptec.com" or you can call tech support in your region (depending where you are of course ... which I cant determine from your email address). Whichever way you contact us our tech support team will be glad to assist. Ciao Neil Clive,

Wow … someone who can speak english, type well and knows how to spell punctuation! Enough platitudes … down to tech support:

You have the wrong driver loaded in the system. You are using the Microsoft driver. Go to Adaptec’s website, download and install the Adaptec driver. That will at least let you see the card and array in ASM.

As for documentation to tell you what you are doing? A good place to start would be the documentation that comes with our newest controllers. The manuals are a darned site better than they were in the 2410 days.
http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/user_guides/Adaptec_RAID_Controller_IUG_6_2009.pdf

It appears you’ve had a drive failure which has confused the daylights out of the card. This is not completely unheard of. It also appears that you have successfully rebuilt the array, but you’ll see that when you get the correct driver in the system and the card shows up in ASM.

If you need further technical assistance we have an online help system “http://ask.adaptec.com” or you can call tech support in your region (depending where you are of course … which I cant determine from your email address).

Whichever way you contact us our tech support team will be glad to assist.

Ciao
Neil

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