Can you try to go into the RAID controller menu to see if you can do a manual rebuild? This would be after the bios screen, but before the OS boots. May be something like "ctrl-E" or "ctrl-t" to get into it.
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Dell PE2500 server won't boot - RAID 5 config
Running Linux FC5. The server has 6 hard drives. The drives are labeled on the server from 0 through 5. The drive labels "3" is dead - orange light.
When it tries to boot, the following displays:
Container 0 Mirror 33.89 gb OK
Container 1 RAID 5 101.56 gb Scrubbing
Then it attempts to boot Linux. After many errors on the screen, it freezes at a kernel panic.
I thought with RAID 5, we could lose a drive and still function? Is there a way to get this server to boot with the one bad drive? I don't do much about RAID configurations. The RAID controller is listed as a "PowerEdge Expandable RAID controller 3/Di".
Thanks for any help.
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Answers
Ctrl-M is not a recognizable function on this server. However all drives are showing good now but getting the same errors as before.
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0
Reading all physical drives. This may take awhile
Couldn't find device with uuid 'VeYN6D-IXvs-SAcm-EHf3-KPC
Couldn't find all physical volumes for volume group Volume00
Volume group "Volume00" not found
Unable to access resume device (/dev/Volume00/LogVol08)
mount: could not find file system '/dev/root'
setuproot: moving /dev failed: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
Here is the Cntrl-A results:
Container Config Utility
List of Containers
00 ooo RAID 1 33.9GB
01 RAID 5 101.7GB
Container Properties
Container 00: ooo TYPE: RAID 1
Size: 33.9GB
Status: OK
Members
0:00:0 Fujitsu MAJ3364MC
0:01:0 Fujitsu MAJ3364MC
Container 01 TYPE: RAID 5
Size: 101.7GB Chunk Size: 64KB
Status: Dead
Members
0:02:0 Seagate ST336605LC 33.9GB
0:04:0 Fujitsu MAN3364MC 33.9GB
0:04:0 Fujitsu MAN3364MC 33.9GB
0:05:0 Seagate ST336605LC 33.9GB
Disk Utility
PERC 3/Di, Controller #0, Channel #0
SCSI ID #0: Fujitsu MAJ3364MC
#1: Fujitsu MAJ3364MC
#2: Seagate ST336605LC
#3: Seagate ST336605LC
#4: Fujitsu MAJ3364MC
#5: Fujitsu MAJ3364MC
#6: Dell 1x6 U2W SCSI BP
#7: Array Controller
Even though that drive that was amber is green now, I would suspect that it would go amber again in the near future.
As far as your kernel panic goes, I don't know that you can repair it at this point. When you have a raid 5 you can loose 1 drive, in which case the array becomes "degraded", yours is showing as "DEAD". I would take this to mean the following:
1. Either the array failed for some reason after the first drive went bad - good possibility if the controller is having problems as well.
2. Another drive was bad as well in addition to the first one.
At this point I would replace the failed drive with a new one. Boot the server into recovery mode with the first RedHat CD or your favorite Live Linux CD, and see if it will show you the drive - just so you can get/copy whatever data you need off of it. Then re-install Linux.
I would also consider replacing the controller with something from 3Ware. The Dell cards are typically bad, but I've seen some odd issues with them, and they aren't as robust in some cases.
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by: DCMBSPosted on 2009-09-03 at 10:44:56ID: 25253026
With RAID 5 you should be able to continue with one disk failed. The Scrubbing task is trying to rebuild the data on the failed disk using parity data on the other disks. Try pulling the bad disk and see if you can boot with a degraded array. If so replacing the disk should be the way to fix it. I note you have two RAID arrays, a mirror set and a RAID 5 set. In this config the O/S would usually be on the mirror set and should not be affected by any issues on the RAID 5 set so I wonder if you have some other issue preventing you booting.