To get help with problems with your RAID controller, you can contact your Dell Service Representative or access the Dell Support web site at support.dell.com.
Logical Drive Degraded
A logical drive is in a degraded condition when one hard drive in its span has failed or is offline. For example, when a RAID 10 logical drive consisting of two spans of two drives each can sustain a drive failure in each span and be a degraded logical drive. The RAID controller has the fault tolerance to undergo a single failure in each span without compromising data integrity or processing capability.
The RAID controller provides this support through redundant arrays in RAID levels 1, 5, 10 and 50. The system can still work properly even with a single disk failure in an array, though performance can be degraded to some extent.
To recover from a degraded logical drive, rebuild the failed drive in each array. Upon successful completion of the rebuild process, the logical drive state changes from degraded to optimal. For the rebuild procedure, see Rebuilding Failed Hard Drives in RAID Configuration and Management.
System CMOS Boot Order
If you intend to boot to the controller, ensure it is set appropriately in the system's CMOS boot order. Refer to the system documentation for your individual system.
NOTE: Only the first eight logical drives can be used as bootable devices.
General Problems
Table 6-1 describes general problems you might encounter, along with suggested solutions.
Table 6-1. General Problems
Problem
Suggested Solution
The device displays in Device Manager but has a yellow bang (exclamation point).
Reinstall the driver. See the driver installation procedures in Driver Installation.
Windows driver does not appear in Device Manager.
Power off the system and reset the card.
"No Hard Drives Found" message appears during a CD-ROM installation of Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 because of the following causes:
The drive is not native in the operating system.
The logical drives are not configured properly.
The controller BIOS is disabled.
The corresponding solutions to the three causes of the message are:
Press <F6> to install the RAID Device Driver during installation.
Enter the BIOS Configuration Utility to configure the logical drives. See RAID Configuration and Management for procedures to configure the logical drives.
Enter the BIOS Configuration Utility to enable the BIOS. See RAID Configuration and Management for procedures to configure the logical drives.
The BIOS Configuration Utility does not detect a replaced physical drive in a RAID 1 array and offer the option to start a rebuild.
After the drive is replaced, the utility shows all drives online and all logical drives reporting optimal state. It does not allow rebuilding because no failed drives are found.
This occurs if you replace the drive with a drive that contains data. If the new drive is blank, this problem does not occur.
Perform the following steps to solve this problem:
Access the BIOS Configuration Utility and select Objects—> Physical Drive to display the list of physical drives.
Use the arrow key to select the newly inserted drive, then press <Enter>.
The menu for that drive displays.
Select Force Offline and press <Enter>.
This changes the physical drive from Online to Failed.
Select Rebuild and press <Enter>.
After rebuilding is complete, the problem is resolved and the operating system will boot.
The system takes a long time to boot during a RAID Level Migration or Check Consistency operation.
This is normal behavior during a RAID level migration or consistency check.
Hard Disk Drive Related Issues
Table 6-2 describes hard drive related problems you might encounter, along with suggested solutions.
Table 6-2. Hard Disk Drive Issues
Problem
Suggested Solution
The system does not boot from the RAID controller.
If the system does not boot from the controller, check the boot order in the BIOS.
One of the hard drives in the array fails often.
This could result from one or two problems.
If the same drive fails:
Format the drive.
Check the enclosure or backplane for damage.
Check the SCSI cables.
Replace the hard drive.
Drives in the same slot keep failing:
Check the enclosure or backplane for damage.
Check the SCSI cables.
Replace the cable or backplane.
Critical Array Status Error is reported during boot-up.
One or more of your logical drives is degraded. To recover from a degraded logical drive, rebuild the failed drive in each array. Upon successful completion of the rebuild process, the logical drive state changes from degraded to optimal. See Logical Drive Degraded in this section for more information. See Rebuilding Failed Hard Drives in RAID Configuration and Management for information about rebuilding failed drives.
FDISK reports much lower drive capacity in the logical drive.
Some versions of FDISK (such as DOS 6.2) do not support large disk drives. Use a version that supports large disk sizes or use a disk utility in your operating system to partition your disk.
Cannot rebuild a fault tolerant array.
This could result from any of the following:
The replacement disk is too small or bad. Replace the failed disk with a good drive.
The enclosure or backplane could be damaged. Check the enclosure. or backplane.
The SCSI cables could be bad. Check the SCSI cables.
Fatal errors or data corruption are reported when accessing arrays.
Contact Dell Technical Support.
Drive Failures and Rebuilds
Table 6-3 describes issues related to drive failures and rebuilds.
Table 6-3. Drive Failure and Rebuild Issues
Issue
Suggested Solution
Rebuilding a hard disk drive after a single drive failure
If you have configured hot spares, the RAID controller automatically tries to use them to rebuild failed disks. Manual rebuild is necessary if no hot spares with enough capacity to rebuild the failed drives are available.You must insert a drive with enough storage into the subsystem before rebuilding the failed drive. You can use the BIOS Configuration Utility or Dell OpenManage® Array Manager to perform a manual rebuild of an individual drive.
Rebuilding hard disk drives after a multi-drive failure
Multiple drive errors in a single array typically indicate a failure in cabling or connection and could involve the loss of data. It is possible to recover the logical drive from a multiple drive failure. Perform the following steps to recover the logical drive:
Shut down the system, check cable connections, and reset hard drives.
Be sure to follow safety precautions to prevent electrostatic discharge.
If the system logs are available, try to identify the order in which the drives failed in the multiple drive failure scenario.
Force the first drive online, then the second (if applicable), and continue till you reach the last disk.
Perform a rebuild on the last disk.
You can use the BIOS Configuration Utility or Dell OpenManage® Array Manager to perform a manual rebuild of multiple drives.
A drive is taking longer than expected to rebuild.
An array may take longer to rebuild when under high stress; for example, when there is one rebuild I/O operation for every five host I/O operations.
A node in a clustering environment fails during a rebuild.
In a clustering environment, if a node fails during a rebuild, the rebuild is re-started by another node. The rebuild on the second mode starts at zero percent.
SMART Error
Table 6-4 describes issues related to the Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART). SMART monitors the internal performance of all motors, heads, and hard drive electronics and detects predictable hard drive failures.
Table 6-4. SMART Error
Problem
Suggested Solution
A SMART error is detected in a fault-tolerant RAID array.
In PERC RAID controllers, the BIOS (option ROM) provides INT 13h functionality (disk I/O) for the logical drives connected to the controller, so that you can boot from or access the drives without the need of a driver. Table 6-5 describes the error messages and warnings that display for the BIOS.
Table 6-5. BIOS Errors and Warnings
Message
Meaning
BIOS Disabled. No Logical Drives
Handled by BIOS
This warning displays after you disable the option ROM in the configuration utility so that the BIOS will not hook Int13h and thus will not provide any I/O functionality to the logical drives.
Press <Ctrl><M> to Enable BIOS
When the BIOS is disabled, you are given the option to enable it by entering the configuration utility. You can change the setting to enabled in the configuration utility.
Configuration of NVRAM and drives
mismatch
Run View/Add Configuration
option of Configuration Utility
Press a key to enter
Configuration Utility
If your boot-time BIOS options are set to Auto mode for BIOS configuration autoselection, the BIOS detects a mismatch of configuration data on the NVRAM and disks and this warning displays. You have to enter the configuration utility to resolve the mismatch before continuing.
Perform the following steps to resolve the mismatch:
Press <Ctrl><M> to enter the BIOS Configuration Utility.
Select Configure—>View/Add Configuration from the Management Menu.
The options Disk or NVRAM display.
Select either Disk to use the configuration data on the hard disk or NVRAM to use the configuration on the NRVAM.
NOTICE: This message will display if any changes
are made to the logical disk configuration in a clustered
environment while one node is not in an up state. Accept
the configuration from the disk.
Adapter at Baseport xxxx is not
responding
where xxxx is the baseport of the adapter
If the adapter does not respond for any reason but is detected by the BIOS, it displays this warning and continues.
Shut down the system and try to reset the card. If this message still occurs, contact Dell Technical Support.
Insufficient Memory to Run BIOS.
Press a Key to Continue
The BIOS needs some memory at POST to run properly. The BIOS allocates this memory either using PMM or another method. If the BIOS still cannot allocate the memory, it stops execution, displays this warning, then continues. This warning is very rare.
Insufficient Memory on the
Adapter for the Current
Configuration
If there is insufficient memory installed on the adapter, this warning displays and the system continues with another adapter. You should check to make sure the memory is properly installed and sufficient.
Shut down the system and try to reset the card. If this message still occurs, contact Dell Technical Support.
Memory/Battery problems were
detected. The adapter has
recovered, but cached data was
lost. Press any key to continue.
This message occurs under the following conditions:
the adapter detects that the cache in the controller cache has not yet been written to the disk subsystem
the boot block detects an ECC error while performing its cache checking routine during initialization
the controller then discards the cache rather than sending it to the disk subsystem because the data integrity cannot be guaranteed
To resolve this problem, allow the battery to charge fully. If the problem persists, the battery or adapter DIMM might be faulty. In that case, contact Dell Technical Support.
x Logical Drive(s) Failed
where x is the number of logical drives failed.
When the BIOS detects logical drives in the failed state, it displays this warning. You should check to determine why the logical drives failed and correct the problem. No action is taken by the BIOS.
x Logical Drives Degraded
where x is the number of logical drives degraded.
When the BIOS detects logical drives in a degraded state, it displays this warning. You should try to make the logical drives optimal. No action is taken by the BIOS.
Following SCSI ID's are not
responding
Channel- ch1: id1, id2, .........
Channel- ch2: id1, id2, .........
.
where chx is channel number and id1 is first id that failed, id2 is second and so on.
When the BIOS determines that previously configured physical drives are not connected to the adapter, the BIOS displays this warning. You can connect the devices or take some other corrective action. The system continues to boot.
Adapter(s) Swap detected for
Cluster/Non-Cluster mismatch
This warning displays when the BIOS detects a cluster/non-cluster mismatch in a cluster environment.
Warning: Battery voltage low
When the battery voltage is low, the BIOS displays this warning. You should check the battery.
Warning: Battery temperature
high
When the battery temperature is high, the BIOS displays this warning. Your system is too hot. Check the air temperature and remove any obstructions to airflow. See messages below link.
Warning: Battery life low
Your RAID battery has a maximum number of charge and discharge cycles. When the BIOS displays this warning, the battery has reached the maximum number of cycles. Replace the battery.
Following SCSI ID's have same
data
Channel- ch1: id1, id2, .........
Channel- ch2: id1, id2, .........
.
where chx is channel number and id1 is first id that has same data, id2 is second and so on.
This message displays when you perform drive roaming and the SCSI IDs have the same data.
Error: Following SCSI Disk not
found and No Empty Slot Available
for mapping it
No mapping done by firmware
Channel- ch1: id1, id2, .........
Channel- ch2: id1, id2, .........
.
where chx is channel number and id1 is first id that was not found, id2 is second and so on.
This message displays when you perform drive roaming and no empty slot is available for the drive(s).
