Need help troubleshooting red ball on disk 2 (solved)

[mymy]

Still on 4.7

 

So I got a red ball on disk 2.  I replaced the disk and had it rebuild the data.  A day later it was finished and all was green.  I thought I had solved it but the next day the same disk 2 was red.  So I assume that it was not the disk drive itself but something else.  So this involves opening the case so perhaps some troubleshooting help would be appreciated.

 

1.  All other disk work on the Sata controller card but guess it could be failing?

2.  Could be something wrong with the Sata cable itself.

 

So I try 2. first and then if still red I would need to replace the card.

 

Any other tips for a newbie on troubleshooting this issue?

 

Thanks.

Alan

[Joe L.]

Still on 4.7

 

So I got a red ball on disk 2.  I replaced the disk and had it rebuild the data.  A day later it was finished and all was green.  I thought I had solved it but the next day the same disk 2 was red.  So I assume that it was not the disk drive itself but something else.  So this involves opening the case so perhaps some troubleshooting help would be appreciated.

 

1.  All other disk work on the Sata controller card but guess it could be failing?

2.  Could be something wrong with the Sata cable itself.

 

So I try 2. first and then if still red I would need to replace the card.

 

Any other tips for a newbie on troubleshooting this issue?

 

Thanks.

Alan

It could be a loose cable, a loose drive rack connector, a power supply unable to keep up with the number of drives connected, an intermittent cable (power or data) an intermittent power cable splitter (one of those drive me crazy on my server)

or intermittent sata controller.

[mymy]

Joe L.,

 

Thanks for the ideas.  Question is when I try to solve this, is the best way to get the disk green is to re-build the array?  If so each time I try something it could take 24 hours to see if it works.  I see there is Trust My Array, but the writeup on that looks scary.  What would be the best way to troubleshoot the disk back to green (to see if it stays green)?  I've copied all the data from that drive to a few disk so I'm not afraid of losing the data on Disk 2.

 

Thanks.

Alan

[garycase]

Once it's been red-balled, you can't get it back to green without rebuilding the drive.

 

When you open the case, I'd do the following ...

 

(a)  Blow out the case with a can of compressed air to get rid of all accumulated dust (optional, but if it hasn't been opened in a while it almost certainly needs this -- use compressed air .. NOT a vacuum cleaner ... as you want static-free air)

 

(b)  As already noted, be certain all of the cables are tightly seated.  I would unplug both the data and power cables; then re-plug them (possibly even replace the data cables).    If the drives are in a hot-swap cage, remove them and replug them, being sure they're securely in place.

 

©  Start it back up.    The drive will almost certainly still be red-balled.  Stop the array; unassign the bad drive;  then Start the array again and it should show as "Missing" this time.    Now Stop the array again and assign the drive back to the same slot.  Start it one more time and it should rebuild the drive.    When it's done, do a parity check to confirm all went well.

 

Assuming all is now okay, you're done.    Otherwise you may very well have a controller issue.