April 3, 200818 yr Author All is well. I replaced both of the original hard drives that were giving me the problems and everything is now back to normal! I just thought I would let everyone know and we can use this thread as a problem and solution. I guess the next thing to do is to upgrade to a new version of 4.2..... WATCH OUT Joe, Tom, and Rob - Thank you very much for your support. Tom, if you're currently not paying Joe and Rob, I believe you should seriously consider it Thanks all again!
April 3, 200818 yr Author Well damn... for whatever reason both drives, which are new, now are showing DMA issues. check the log.... Crap, I can't post my log, upload folder full.
April 3, 200818 yr Tom, if you're currently not paying Joe and Rob, I believe you should seriously consider it I really like the way you think!!! And you are welcome! Well damn... for whatever reason both drives, which are new, now are showing DMA issues. If those DMA messages and the preceding messages look similar to the previous ones, then we have to assume there is probably a bad cable or bad Promise card.
April 3, 200818 yr Author Well, I did a bunch of testing and we can rule out cable and I think power supply I tried two different Promise cards, but maybe both of those are bad? Here is the system log.... if it lets me attach
April 4, 200818 yr Nothing particularly new in this syslog, essentially the same errors are showing up, the same loss of DMA on the drives connected to IDE4 (hdi and hdj), and the minor SMART errors associated with hdf, hdk, and hdl. In looking back over what has been done, I can't tell if you tried my suggestions about IDE3. You aren't using the fourth IDE channel IDE3, which is the Secondary channel on the first Promise card. If it is working fine, why not add an IDE cable to it, and hook up ONE of the mis-behaving drives to it, either hdi or hdj. That way, both will have a channel to themselves, and can't affect the other. You may or may not have to do one more Parity check or sync, but then you should be in a better position to replace one at a time. The DMA errors have all been on the first connector on the second Promise card. The first card is only half in use, so it still seems useful to move drives to it, especially if the second and third Promise cards are giving problems. It seems unlikely that 2 different cards could be going bad in the same way, but we are running out of other suspects. When I refer to first and second card, I'm using the order that the Linux kernel is discovering them. The first card in this case is the one with only one cable, and 2 drives attached. A different idea, if parity is already invalid and the data has been removed from hdi and hdj, just remove the 2 drives, then test the system for speed and stability, perhaps build parity, and if good, add one of the new drives to IDE3 (Master on second cable on first Promise card), and test again, and proceed accordingly, add second new drive to Slave position on same cable. I still like the idea of upgrading to the latest version. There is a fix in the latest beta that should remove those SMART errors on 3 drives. I can't guarantee any more than that, but I don't think it would hurt, and it might help.
April 4, 200818 yr Author Rob, I guess I didn't see the idea about moving one or two of the drive to the other Promise card! I will give it a try and see what happens... I am with you in thinking that these problems could be caused from the promise card... I will let you know how things go.
April 4, 200818 yr Author Well, things took a turn for the worse. My system now won't power up :'( I don't know if something is shorting the system, but I checked and re-seated all power cables and the array would turn on for a few second then power down. I replaced 1 of my two power supplies (a Sparkle with a backup Sparkle) and it powered for a few minutes. I then powered the tower down to clean up the cables and BAM! Same thing! I have 1x 350 Sparkle (Tom used this in the original array) and a Silverstone power supply powering only 6 hard drives. So, I am thinking something must be shorting my system and I plan on taking her apart tonight and see if something is loose. I guess, when it rains it pours At least the wife is in China so I have all Friday night to drink beer and hopefully not kick the server
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