Hello.

I have some weird problem with one disk on HP DL385 with Adaptec 2200S SCSI controller. Using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 3. The BIOS/driver/firmware for the controller is the newest one. Everything started when I was copyring some data through ftp from another server. The server suddenly got frozen, we couldn't even log on it. After a while it was ok again but in /var/log/messages we saw tons of messages like this:
And because the Adaptec diagnostic utility marked the logical drive (the logical drive was not redundant, it contained only one physical disk) and the phys. drive as failed, we replaced the failed drive with the same but new drive (its HP 146GB drive, both have same firmware). The process of deleting old logical disk and creating new one was done without any error messages and we did it without restarting the system. Then we created partition on the log. disk with fdisk. All fine just few error messages in logs:

All are identical (same sector/logical block). Because the disk has got same dev name as the disk before, and because the partition was created successfully we think that kernel had some old data and this triggered the error messages. When we were accessing the disk later with fdisk, no error mesages were logged. Then we created file system on the partition without any problems just again some messages in logs like this:

But the fs was created successfully and the forced fs check didn't show any errors. We tried to copy 1GB of data onto it without problems. So we thank its all ok. But at the end of copying 70GB of data the system frozen again. We had to hard restart it and this was in logs:

Lots of them, logical blocks are different. But the phys. and log. drive isn't marked as failed. No other error messages are logged (just fs ones). So why it can write almost 70GB of data without any problems but it fails at the last file? There are 3 other log. drives on the same controller and they are without any problem. It fails just on this one. The phys drive there is a new one, so I don't think it is broken. What may be the reason of the problem?

Sorry for the longer post. Ty for answers!

Hi,

Since you have replaced the hdd with another and the same errors occur then the potential problems indicate a controller.

I would do some testing on the controller with manufacture diagnostics to insure that's not the problem. Check the cable and connectors integrity.

You may need to power down the system to allow the cleaning of the controller edge & connector. Do not use a pencil eraser or the like. You can use one inch folded 20# paper and denatured alcohol to wipe the edge. For the connector a credit card with the paper folded over, wet then push into the connector. One wipe per paper and in one direction for the edge. One insert per piece for the connector. Discard the used paper and use a new piece each time, if you don't then all you will be doing is transferring dirt between wipes.

Hey.

Ty for answer. Hmm power down system, cleaning, it doesn't sound good :-P . But prob. we will have to do it. I was thinking about differences between this log. drive and the others 3 there. And I found out that this one has enabled write cache. Can the problem occur because of some problems with the cache? Or can be it due some kernel bug? Using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, kernel 2.6.9-34.ELsmp x64.

Again ty for answer!

There's a little possibility that it's a kernel prob but you might also upgrade your kernel to at least 2.6.27.XX. 2.6.9 is already a bit too old. It can also be the controller or the wire.