Hi,

 

I can't find the topics for 4.7 support, so posted my problem here. Please let me know if I need to move to a proper area.

 

I have been running 4.7 since it was available without many issues. Two weeks ago, there was a power outage and I found my server down after going home and it won't boot up again. I have 2 spare power supplies, but failed on both of them. I just ordered a new one and still can't boot the server. Upon testing, I found the server will boot up if I unplug all the power cables except for CPU. Whenever I plugged in any power cable for the hard drives or fans, the server won't boot up. I am using modular power supply, so I don't need to unplug the power cable on the disk end. Please help since I have no access to all the files on the server and afraid of losing all the files amount to several TB.

 

My system:

Mother board: P5B-VM DO

One stick of 1GB RAM

Two two-ports Sata Raid cards

9 disks including one parity: 8 SATA and 1 IDE.

 

Since I am using disk share only, will I be able to read each individual disk by using USB enclosure to read the disk one by one?

 

Thanks,

--Tom

The power thing isn't really an unraid issue, but we'll still be glad to help. The general support forum is fine for this kind of stuff.

 

First, unless you really did fry your hard drives, you will be able to read them in any system that can read reiserfs. The easiest way to do that is to set up another machine to temporarily boot unraid and set it up as a server with only unraid data disks. As long as you don't assign any disks to the parity slot, you can read them as disk shares without fear of wiping the contents out. Just make sure you unplug any disks that weren't part of your unraid array.

 

As to what's going on with your current case, motherboard and PSU, I would go back to the basics to troubleshoot. You say you have a modular supply, so you haven't been unplugging the disk end. Not all modular supplies use the same setup, cables that work on one may not work on another. I think you need to unplug ALL the disk and fan connections, and start over using the new power supply and matching cables with just a single drive, and see if it powers up. If so, add another drive, etc, until you find the culprit.  I would pull the unraid USB key and set it aside, just see if you can get the system to give you a boot screen. If you can get all your drives to spin, then put the USB back and let it come up all the way.

Thank you very much for your direction. I was able to bring back my server again. The key word is what you said: "Not all modular supplies use the same setup, cables that work on one may not work on another."  After reading your reply, I unplug everything(including unRAID USB drive) and start over again with the original power supply(OCZ 600W) with only CPU/MB power cable and verified there is no power/LED lit on the MB. I then switch to the new power supply(Seasonic 660W) with "new cable" that comes with the new power supply to connect to the only IDE HD I have and all the cooling fans.  Then, the system was able to boot up to the BIOS screen! That's a big improvement and milestone. I found two cooling fan died. I then moved on to test the rest of SATA drives with "new cables". All went well, so I plugged in everything. The system booted up again.

 

Without your prompt help, I won't be able to get the server back. I really appreciate your help.

 

--Tom

 

I'm just very glad that the power supply refused to run with the wrong cables, I was afraid you had sent 12V to the 5V line on your drives and fried the hard drive controller boards.

 

It's great that everything turned out ok. 

Luckily that the difference of cables didn't fry the hard drive controller boards. I need to check the output voltages even though the connectors are exactly the same type.  I thought the cable is standard for modular type of power supply.  Need to verify that.