Topic: Weird Raid Problems

[Paul]

I just noticed this morning that my raid is not working and have determined by my /proc/mdstat that hda must be failing.  Here's the real weird part.  When I started checking I found my disk geometry on the 2 disks are different (see below).  These are exact same brand/model# disks. I bought them at the same time.

# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 5005 cylinders <<"FAILING DISK"
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1        13    104391   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda2            14      4972  39833167+  fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda3          4973      5005    265072+  fd  Linux raid autodetect

# fdisk -l /dev/hdc

Disk /dev/hdc: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 79780 cylinders <<"WORKING DISK"
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdc1   *         1       203    102280+  fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hdc2           204     79259  39844224   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hdc3         79260     79779    262080   fd  Linux raid autodetect

The geometry on the drives themselves is 16/63/16383.  What happened here?  Why are the H/C/S different on both drives and why are they different than the specs on the drives themselves?

hdc seems to work properly, should I try changing the H/C/S settings on hda with fdisk and rebuilding the raid array or should I just get a new disk (or even replace both)?

Another thought--This problem must have started a couple of weeks ago because according to my logs it dropped hda2 on md1 a couple of weeks ago and it dropped hda3 on md2 this morning.  Am I supposed to check my logs every day or is there a way to have problems emailed to me when they happen?

Thanks,
Paul

[Brian Read]

Use this for Raid array monitoring

http://lordsfam.net/downloads/other/raidmonitor/raid-monitor-howto.html

cheders

Brian

[Jeroen]

did you check the bios settings yet?

jeroen

[Paul]

Yes I have checked Bios.  hda has crashed.  This is the second IBM Deathstar that has bombed on me in about a year. I will NEVER buy another.  

Server running on 1 drive and twice daily backups for now.  I must get this resolved ASAP.

I am going to buy 2 new drives and throw the IBM's in the garbage (actually I could use another paperweight...NOT!!).  What is your favorite and best trusted brand (ATA100 IDE)?

Any and all nightmare stories are welcome here!!!

Thanks,

Paul