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Dell r710 DRAC 6/i - drives not showing up

We have a Dell r710 that is having drives constantly fail. At this point we're almost sure something is wrong with the backplane. We recently replaced a bad drive with a new one. Not only did the new one show failure it quit rebuilding. We ended up rebooting the server due to VMware ESXi not responding. After doing so that drive shows healthy but not online. And... We're now missing a drive. Drive 5 (the last one) is showing to be empty on the Open Manage console. Is there anything we can do in OpenManage to rescan all drives?

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Stampel

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gopher_49

ASKER

I'm 99% sure they are fully patched. I'll double check.

rindi

Are you using Enterprise class disks that are also certified by Dell for that server, and not some standard desktop disks?

gopher_49

ASKER

yes. These are Dell labeled disks and certified. Brand new.. We're thinking the backplane is having issues.

Seth Simmons

i would first look at the controller log as to what errors are showing when these things occur
recede the cables to the controller, replacing the controller are 2 further steps
could be back plane, could be controller, could be cabling...multiple possibilities

Is there anything we can do in OpenManage to rescan all drives?

when you add/remove drives it will appear immediately in OMSA

Stampel

Can you doublecheck if disks are really dead by trying to rebuild them in another bay

Seth Simmons

i was ruling out disks because it would seem extremely odd to have that many problems with disks like that

Stampel

i think the same you do but it he has a left bay he should be able to init/verify the disk to be sure

gopher_49

ASKER

I'll check the controller log and will report my findings. I do not have another bay to try. These are brand new disks and I've also had issues with other disk on this particular server.

Stampel

Can you post your RAID configuration ?
Screenshots from OpenManage.
Number of physical disks ?
Number of virtual disks ?
Number of spare disks ?
Type of RAID(s)

Have you been able to verify all BIOS ?

Could you upgrade the server to latest updates available by downloading and using Repository Manager here ? http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/1767.dell-repository-manager

Use these 2 links for creating repo and then creating bootable ISO from the repo :
http://www.vmadmin.co.uk/other/332-dellbiosfirmwareupdaterepomanager
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nswcMshNrXY

gopher_49

ASKER

I'll post this information over the weekend. We moved all VMs to a different host for now.

Seth Simmons

any update on this?

gopher_49

ASKER

The became low priority since the VMs where moved. We've had countless issues with the backplane and/or controller. I'll get the local admin to grab the logs from the controller.

gopher_49

ASKER

We patched all firmwares and drives detected again. One is now running a parity check

gopher_49

ASKER

It was not patched. All good now.