raid5 two of two, shit!

[mattch]

had some pwoer supply woes, yanked the pc out to put it on the bench, opened it up, powered it up nothing. Power but no display

unplugged let it sit while i did something else come back try to re-power

snap crackle pop the blue smoke has escaped.

I have 4 drives in a Raid5 array, the last two drives were smoking!

immediatly disconnect power and examine drives.

Both drives have the same component fried on PCB (right by sata power connector) but i have no idea what this is, my first guess i would say some sort of fuse because its right off the power lead (i think the 12v ) and it basiclly broken in two, i dont see any other signs of damage but who knows...

its black rectangular, has a logo "ST" a space then an "E"
below that has BUX and below that says C705 or C750

the question of the day (for me anyway) is that once that is component is identified do you think replacing it would allow me to at least power the drive up to clone it in hopes of saving some data.

unless anyone knows how to save raid 5 with only 2 of 4 drives lol..


forgot to get the pictures, but they are comming soon!

[seanc]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

Pictures, make & model of HDDs and PSU.

Pictures of PSU inside too please

Your objective should be to resurrect at least one drive! Were both on the same string of connectors?

[mattch]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

update:

two bad drives both component is are label "ST" "E", the component on the working two which are SAME drive looks like from another manufacturer, bare with me here im getting pics of all four drives.

drive 1 - first line KVP second line 68A last line some logo looks like planet with squiglly rings

drive 2 - first line logo circle with QN inside it, second line 703 third line LEW

drive 3 - first line logo ST E, second BUX, third C703

drive 4 - first line logo ST E, second BUX, third C705

side note i have another drive that has STE BUX C705, all are sata

i will have pics

[Per Hansson]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

It will be easier when you post pics
But most likely it is a power mosfet, harddrives are very sensitive for both under and overvoltage

If you are lucky it will be enough to replace it
Seeing as you have RAID5 it wont be the end of the world anyway if you kill one of the now 2 dead harddrives, since you could always send the other one to a data recovery lab (so I would leave one of them alone if I where you)

Also, on recent harddrives it is not possible to do PCB swap, because a big part of the logic is in a EEPROM on the PCB, and this must match what is on the platters for the bootup to be successfull...
You can do PCB swap but then you must desolder this chip and move it to the new PCB... (it can also be two chips, usually small ones with 8 legs, in all cases EEPROM chips)

[mattch]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

this compnent has no legs, the ends of the rectangle solder on the pcd.

i didnt know that about the PCB swaps, that was something i was toying around with trying since the drives are identical, even if firmware is same it would not work? i had luck with that on much older drivers once out of half dozen times i tried lol


and before anyone goofs on me, the title should be 2 of 4!!

[mattch]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

Pictures, make & model of HDDs and PSU.

Pictures of PSU inside too please

Your objective should be to resurrect at least one drive! Were both on the same string of connectors?

sorry i did not see your post at first!

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB ST3500630AS fw 3.AAK
x3 (two bad, one good)

one has fw 3.AAE

Antec SP-400
using two strands, the last connectors on the two strands were on the last two drives that went out


Here is a pic of one drive, wont bother with rest until i get the higher res. camera

[seanc]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

An un-moddified Antec SP-400? :/

I have one of these drives upstairs...

[mattch]

Re: raid5 two of 4, shit!

UNmodified?!?!?! i do not like the sound (or looks) of that!!

looks like i need to look into sp-400 issues then huh? i have several of them still commisioned!!!!


i opened the bad one, quick observation i see 4 bad caps, wont be able to check out in detail until tomarrow

[seanc]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

Here's mine in case it is any use to you, same model, same firmware. Site code: TK.

I believe it is a TVS diode, once replaced hopefully all will be OK!

You can see from the dust that it's been sat, upturned on my desk for quite some time. Lots of bad sectors, it'll go off for RMA after I've moved.

[seanc]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

The modification you should make to all of them is capacitor replacement!

[Per Hansson]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

Hi, that does indeed look like a fuse
Please post better pics and we might be able to figure it out

And yea, PCB swap is a no go, I can say that with 90% certainty
It is of course possible your drives have a different construction where it wont depend on an EEPROM to make stuff works
But on the recent drives I've worked on that hasn't been the case...

EDIT; I started writing this before seanc posted that nice pic

[Uranium-235]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

you should of ran raid 6 (dual parity) :P

[severach]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

BUX is a SMT diode. When I ran out of scrap boards with BUX on them I started replacing them with any SMT diode from any brand hard drive that was the same look and dimensions. They all work fine.

Most drives will come back to life when you throw some BUX at them.

Antec SmartPower should be inspected every 6 months. If that's too much trouble they should be recapped or replaced with something that doesn't break down.

Here's a couple of successful repairs. On one a BUX was replaced with an AE which is a little narrower. Another didn't blow at the BUX but a little farther in.

[kc8adu]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

those are a tvs.
you can just remove them to test.
but use a known good psu!

[mattch]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

Yes, that is it! thank you for the pictures!! (iphone 3g camera sucks) I found out the drives are still covered under warranty, im afraid by removing or replacing that part would invalidate the warranty.

Since out of the 4 drives, 3 are same FW version, date and site code, i thought i would try to swap PCBs since i dont think i have any other option if i want to keep warranty.

Of the three identical drives, two are ones not working. I took PCB off good drive and put on the first of the bad drives, no luck drive shows up as unallocated/brand new. plus the motor was spinning very fast (had that gyro effect). So i took out the good PCB and tried it on the second bad drive.

this time the drive feels like its spinning normal, i booted Acronis up hoping to clone that to another drive. But ran into another issue now! acronis (and all other cloning software i tried, ghost, dd) shows that the 500GB drive has 1.8 TB partition, which is the partition size of the array when it was working. Acronis locks up about third of way, ghost reports a 500GB drive but the partition is showing up as a negative size then says complete in like two seconds. dd gives me error no space left on drive, completes in like 2 seconds.

Anyone know how i can get this drive cloned so i can attempt to save my data. I thought DD would do it since that suppose to be bit-by-bit, but i think it getting screwed up becasue it detects a partition of 1.8tb on 500gb or the fact i dont know much about dd and linux...

any ideas or should i just chalk it up as lost data...?

[Per Hansson]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

It wont work to swap the PCB, you will need to move the eeprom aswell (from the broken PCB the the working PCB)

It would be way easier to just repair the component that was broken by the power surge

But if your data is worth less than the price of a drive why even bother with physical repair?

[Per Hansson]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

double post

[seanc]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

I would also just repair the drive - if you want your data.

I would have thought Seagate would reject those drives anyway.

[mattch]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

those are a tvs.
you can just remove them to test.
but use a known good psu!

Remove them to test? are you saying i can remove those and it should work fine as long as my power supply is not havign any issues?

if thats the case could i just figure out a way to make some sort of jumper to bypass that without removing it?

i dont really want to perminatly modify the drive for fear of warranty rejection.
Im a student so money is very tight, and the data is very important to me. with that being said i would explore more alternatives to saving my data and money. All else fails i will end up tryign to repair to get some data and just use one less drive until i can buy another one.

I would also just repair the drive - if you want your data.

I would have thought Seagate would reject those drives anyway.

I have sent in burnt drives like this and gotten replcements back so im not worried about that, i just worry that removing a component is goign to be more grounds for the tech to say sorry physical damage when they examine it.

Per Hansson i do believe your right, as all my tests fail, but i had to try!

[seanc]

Re: raid5 two of two, shit!

If you think Seagate will replace it, fair enough.

I've only ever had one drive that suffered that damage, it was pulled from a HP/Compaq & was a 20gb Seagate.

I just replaced it - in hindsight (2 years ago), I should have investigated that PSU.