rockytt Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 I think I know the answer here, but was hoping for a little advice before ripping things apart. Been running my unRaid box for a couple of years with very few hitches. Currently (at least until a few hours ago!) had 12 drives (10+1 parity) operating just fine. Parity, 1,2,3 drives running off the MB and the other 8 off two different SATA cards. Suddenly I get huge problems and I'm told that drives 1 + 3 are missing (red)-which is, of course, a bit of a problem. I run a parity check every month, no errors reported, etc, etc - so this is really out of the blue. I realize that w/o actually looking at the equipment you can't begin to give me a 100% diagnostic-but what are the chances that it's the SATA controller on my MB that's decided to conk out as opposed to two different drives (one fairly new) simultaneously doing so? Is a good test to swap #1 and #2 and see if I still get the "drive 1 missing" error? (It would seem that this would indicated a controller issue rather than a physical drive issue) Anything else I could try? If worse comes to worse, what are the chances of "simply" (hah!) swapping the MB for a different one and still keeping all my data intact? Thanks for any and help on this - it's much appreciated! Link to comment
Joe L. Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 I think I know the answer here, but was hoping for a little advice before ripping things apart. Been running my unRaid box for a couple of years with very few hitches. Currently (at least until a few hours ago!) had 12 drives (10+1 parity) operating just fine. Parity, 1,2,3 drives running off the MB and the other 8 off two different SATA cards. Suddenly I get huge problems and I'm told that drives 1 + 3 are missing (red)-which is, of course, a bit of a problem. I run a parity check every month, no errors reported, etc, etc - so this is really out of the blue. I realize that w/o actually looking at the equipment you can't begin to give me a 100% diagnostic-but what are the chances that it's the SATA controller on my MB that's decided to conk out as opposed to two different drives (one fairly new) simultaneously doing so? Is a good test to swap #1 and #2 and see if I still get the "drive 1 missing" error? (It would seem that this would indicated a controller issue rather than a physical drive issue) Anything else I could try? If worse comes to worse, what are the chances of "simply" (hah!) swapping the MB for a different one and still keeping all my data intact? Thanks for any and help on this - it's much appreciated! far more likely the power splitter feeding those two drives is loose, or common back-plane, or disk controller card is loose. If it is the MB, or the disk controller, then swapping it for a new one will retain all your data. Link to comment
rockytt Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 Yeah - not a card as they're both plugged directly into the MB, and have also swapped out the power splitter- Good to know that, although a tad inconvenient (!), swapping out the MB won't ultimately be a death blow... Link to comment
Joe L. Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 could also be that only one died, but it locks up a controller that it shares with the other. Try unplugging just one, and then just the other. Link to comment
rockytt Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 OK-so that seemed a little strange- 1) swapped data leads with one good drive and one of the bad. rebooted and had 3 red drives, with the same 2 showing as missing. 2) put the leads back, then simply swapped data leads on the "bad" drives. rebooted and had 2 reds, but showed "disc configuration wrong" instead this time. clicked to record the new configuration (can't remember the exact term) and all are green again. 3) go run a parity check and the two drives are clearly unhappy (ton of errors) and then both are red again.me Time to pull the board and see if we can find a replacement... Thanks for all the help - fingers crossed for a successful rebuild... Link to comment
opentoe Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 I don't know the odds, but having two drives fail at the exact same time is not likely. Are there stats to this failure? Change that mainboard! Link to comment
rockytt Posted June 24, 2011 Author Share Posted June 24, 2011 Open to suggestions here-I'm not a complete idiot here, but I've just never (ever) had this happen before: I found an exact replacement for my failing board and moved all the pieces over. I double-checked the connections and fired her up. Fans came on, I heard the HDs cycling on and was initially optimistic-but then nothing else. The boot screen never appeared, keyboard + mouse never powered up, and the USB stick never did either. Is there anything else other than a dead MB that could be causing this??? No warning beeps, no flashing lights, just nothing after the HDs cycling on... Link to comment
Joe L. Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 Open to suggestions here-I'm not a complete idiot here, but I've just never (ever) had this happen before: I found an exact replacement for my failing board and moved all the pieces over. I double-checked the connections and fired her up. Fans came on, I heard the HDs cycling on and was initially optimistic-but then nothing else. The boot screen never appeared, keyboard + mouse never powered up, and the USB stick never did either. Is there anything else other than a dead MB that could be causing this??? No warning beeps, no flashing lights, just nothing after the HDs cycling on... Bad power supply. Bad memory. (Easier to check memory first) Bad CPU (you eliminated the MB by replacing it) Link to comment
SSD Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 Open to suggestions here-I'm not a complete idiot here, but I've just never (ever) had this happen before: I found an exact replacement for my failing board and moved all the pieces over. I double-checked the connections and fired her up. Fans came on, I heard the HDs cycling on and was initially optimistic-but then nothing else. The boot screen never appeared, keyboard + mouse never powered up, and the USB stick never did either. Is there anything else other than a dead MB that could be causing this??? No warning beeps, no flashing lights, just nothing after the HDs cycling on... Do you have a motherboard speaker installed? Usually there are beep codes when something goes wrong. I'd recommend hooking one up if you don't already have. If you are not getting beep codes, I'd recommend going to the thinest configuration possible - PSU, motherboard, CPU, 1 stick memory, video card (if not on mainboard), keyboard. No hard disks, controllers, add on cards installed. Remove USB stick. See if it POSTs like that and you can get into BIOS. If not, try a different video card and memory stick and keyboard. If still nothing, looks like a bad MB, CPU, or PSU. Usually PSUs work or don't work - but possible for them to be flakey I suppose. If you're on your second MB, CPU starts to look suspicious - but bad CPU is very rare. It is also possible (although pretty unlikely), to short something out with one of the screws holding the motherboard to the case. Usually there is a little insulator around the screw holes to prevent this. Link to comment
rockytt Posted June 24, 2011 Author Share Posted June 24, 2011 Thanks for the replies - I'll try a few things today - remember that everything is from the other machine (memory, PS, CPU etc) I like the idea of starting w/minimum configuration just to be sure though- Thanks! Link to comment
rockytt Posted June 24, 2011 Author Share Posted June 24, 2011 Small update, unplugged everything, reseated cpu and still get no boot/post screen. Same case/video card/memory/cpu as before with an identical MB Dropped by Fry's to try and p/u a MB speaker and was told they don't carry them. (sigh...) Link to comment
rockytt Posted July 8, 2011 Author Share Posted July 8, 2011 OK - attempt #3... Thought I was buying the same (old) MB, actually got a close relative instead- Seemed to boot up fine, except that the the 8 disks on the 2 PCI controller cards show up as red (missing) - some bios setting I might have missed? It never came up before, so I'm hopeful it's just a simple setting that I never had the opportunity to mess with... Board is an ASUS P5LD2-VM REV:1.03G Link to comment
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