Xserve RAID volume corruption, volumes missing in Disk Utility

I have an Xserve with 3 drives in a RAID 5 set. The RAID set is divided into 2 volumes. After hard booting the server to recover from a crash, the volumes seemed to disappear.
We booted to an install disk and ran Disk Utility, which showed that there were no volumes at all. We then ran RAID Utility, which showed the volumes there.
After the RAID ran a re-initialization and verify, RAID Utility shows green lights throughout, as if everything is fine. Nothing else, however, can see the volumes.
We booted to an external drive with OS X installed, and basically found the same situation. Only RAID Utility can see those volumes, but otherwise they're just plain missing. However, RAID Utility does show "Partitions: None" for both of those volumes.
We have tried placing the drives into another server to determine if the problem is with the RAID card, but we had the same results. I also tried booting to target disk mode, but the other machine can't see the volumes all the same.
Using an external boot disk, we upgraded the RAID firmware. We also reset the SMC, as well as the PRAM. Nothing is working so far.
AppleCare basically told me that we're SOL and have to rebuild. Unfortunately, there is some data there which was overlooked in our backup procedure. If there is any possibility of recovering the data, I'd like to try it before giving up.
My absolute last option is to recreate the volumes exactly as they were before, then hope that I can use some manner of un-erase to recover the data. However, I'm not sure how RAID works on that level, should it just jumble the data, or if this is even remotely a feasible option.

Port 1: Link Established
2Gps
Point to point
Status light green
In the system Profiler I'm not sure what you're asking for, I'm running 10.5.8 standard not server.
the fibre channel shows link established 2Gps and cable type copper but nothing else, the disks & RAID controller don't show up anywhere I've looked.
RAID Admin shows the JBOD disks as online and lists the LUNs etc.
System looks fine, only error is missing second power supply.

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Harddisk suddenly missing in Disk Utility

Hi,
My 2nd hard drive is missing in Disk Utility. It doesn't show in Finder either.
System profile is the only place where I can see the physical drive, but no partitions are displayed. It only shows this:
WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0:
Model: WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0
Revisie: 07.02E07
Serienummer: WD-WCAN**262
Native Command Queuing: Ja
Queue Depth: 32
Externe eenheid: Nee
Whereas for my ROOT drive it says this (including the partition)
WDC WD2500JS-41SGB0:
Capaciteit: 232,89 GB
Model: WDC WD2500JS-41SGB0
Revisie: 20.06C04
Serienummer: WD-WCAN**092
Native Command Queuing: Ja
Queue Depth: 32
Verwisselbare media: Nee
Externe eenheid: Nee
BSD-naam: disk0
Naam nis: "Bay 1"
Mac OS 9-besturingsbestanden: Nee
Type partitie-indeling: GPT (GUID-partitietabel)
S.M.A.R.T.-status: Gecontroleerd
Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
Capaciteit: 211,88 GB
Beschikbaar: 21,48 GB
Beschrijfbaar: Ja
Bestandssysteem: Journaled HFS+
BSD-naam: disk0s2
Activeringspunt: /
Furthermore I cannot shutdown my system with this particular internal drive connected. It hangs after a few seconds. With a hard reset using the power button, I removed the whole 2nd drive bay and after a restart leopard shuts down as normal. Since I cannot see the drive in Disk Utility, how am I able to repair it? Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks.
<Edited by Host>

Try Disk Warrior (you'll want to have a system for just maintenance and repairs only); or Drive Genius 2; or TechTool Pro.
The directory and journaling could be so corrupt for various reasons it can't be mounted. Bad sector.
Other than anything not backed up I'd RMA or zero, but I'd also invest in replacing with a new model.

Xserve RAID Fibre Channel Lights pegged until disk activity

We are having some issues with an Xserve RAID connected to a G5 Xserve running 10.4.8 Server. The Fibre Channel lights on the front are constantly maxed out, but whenever the disk are active the lights die down only to peg again when activity stops. Needless to say, we are having SEVERE access speed issues. Any ideas?

This can happen in a protected RAID set (i.e. RAID 5) if a single raid member drive pops offline and back on again, since the RAID set has to re-build itself from the parity data in that case.
It also happens after creating a RAID 5 volume, as the creation usually takes a few days (assuming you used the 'RAID Now' option), and so you'll see the blue lights.
It also makes sense that the blue light 'spiking' would drop when you do a read/write, as the initialization process has to pause to handle the disk activity.
Are either of these the case?
We are having some issues with an Xserve RAID
connected to a G5 Xserve running 10.4.8 Server. The
Fibre Channel lights on the front are constantly
maxed out, but whenever the disk are active the
lights die down only to peg again when activity
stops. Needless to say, we are having SEVERE access
speed issues. Any ideas?
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Repairing volume for 2 hours in Disk Utility?

I recently got the flashing question mark on startup on my MacBook. I booted from the OS X Install Disk and am trying to repair the HD in Disk Utility's First Aid. It's been showing "Repairing volume" in green and "Look for missing items in lost+found directory" with the status bar nearly complete for the past 2 hours - would it ever really take that long?
I'm perfectly content to let it repair and look all night if it's actually doing something but I'm worried that it's not.
My warranty runs out tomorrow so if my hard drive is toast, I'd like to know soon!
Any help would be appreciated.

You might have to invest in a more thorough program like [DiskWarrior|http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior> or [TechTool Pro|http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid =83]. Disk Utility is somewhat limited in it's ability to repair damaged volumes (which is why you get the flashing question mark).
Steve

My hardware RAID 1 only showing up in disk utility and not finder.

Last week I finally was able to take my early 2011 iMac in to have my Seagate 1TB hard drive replaced for the recall.
Late 2010 model iMac
OS X 10.6.8
OWC Mercury Elite Pro 4TB x 4TB Hardware RAID
When I took it in the RAID 1 was working just fine. When I finally got the iMac back and booted everything up the RAID 1 was getting the dialog box that read "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."
I have tried going into disk utility to see if I can verify the disk and then saw it is coming up as two different volumes... Along with those two different volumes, I can not go to click verify as it is greyed out.
I contacted OWC and they said they have never heard of this and had two solutions, to try a software like diskwarrior, or if that didnt work I can take the drives out and try another external dock to see if it is the RAID hardware.
If anyone has any ideas as to what could help with this situation that would be great as I was under the impression (and told by a number of other people) that having a RAID 1 as my backup was good and should not need anything else. I just want to be able to get all the data off then I will rebuild it or send it into OWC.
Thanks!!!!

So a fault in the Hardware Raid controller could make it not read properly? I am planning on having a good backup set up after this!
As for the screenshot, the original was not set up with the SoftRaid. When I got the computer back I installed that to see if that may pick it up and make it at least readable to save the data on it. The two in question are the highlighted 4TB drives, which befor also read as one drive as it was set up in the OWC enclosure as a hardware raid.

Setting up RAID 1 on 2 HD with disk utility

professional photographer based in shanghai, i need to set up a raid 1 (mirroring) between 2 brand new 750 GB hard disks for data back up.
Using the disk utility, i get confused.
_ some data arrives damaged on one of the hd
_ the HDs will not mount separately anymore so now way to check if data is definitely on both of them
_ should i plug them one behind the other or directly into my firewire hub?
thx a lot!

Hi patwack;
I hate to tell you this but RAID 1 is not a valid backup solution for data. the only thing that RAID 1 does is to protect you from the failure of a disk. A valid backup solution protects you from much more then that.
Allan

Partition tab missing in Disk Utility

I have a 2011 iMac that came with Mtn Lion. I have a WD 2 TB external HD that I reformatted, as it came with WinOS. I formatted it with Disk Utility to MAC OS EXTENDED (JOURNALED). I have Carbon Copy Cloner (v.3.5.3) and want to partition the external drive to be bootable. However, DU has no Partition Tab. How do I then partition this to be bootable?
I am using a separate HD for Time Machine.
Please advise. Thanks!

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
You need to select the highest level of the external drive listed in the left column of Disk Utility.
Once one partition is created on the drive and you select it, that partition cannot be further partitioned, so the Partition tab does not appear.

Fat32 missing in Disk Utility?!

Hello, I want/need to format my 2GB USB stick to Fat32 to use with my Xbox 360.
I have done this successfully on my Mum's old Macbook running 10.5 so assumed the process would be the same.
I opened up Disk Utility and erased it, then in the partition tab clicked on options then "Master Boot Record" as that should give the option for Fat32, yet only Fat is available. After formatting it as Fat and hoping it would work, I got an error saying it needs to be in Fat32 to be read.
So am I doing something wrong, or is there a third party disk utility-like app that will format it to Fat32?
Thanks guys, baRRy
Message was edited by: baRRy boRRis

Thanks to Tom Craigen for this command line method of formatting FAT32. I found this archived thread, and Tom's instructions are the last post in the thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8509160#8509160
I had to download a firmware update for my Vizio LED LCD HDTV. I hardly ever have a Windoze computer handy. I found a jump drive and used this archived thread to format the drive. Then I followed the firmware update instructions from the TV manufacturer's web site. I was able to do the update just fine using Disk Utility and Terminal command line. Thanks, Tom!
If you decide to try this FAT32 formatting using Terminal, and you are new to using Disk Utility and Terminal, and using Unix language and instructions, maybe you should get someone to help. At least read the instructions carefully, and be sure anything you do is only with the jump drive or disk drive you want to format. The commands will wipe the drive.
You can do in Terminal what Disk Utility does not (yet?) do. You still need Disk Utility to do some of the work, but Tom's command line instructions will do the formatting.
There are a couple of spots that might not be clear (in item 9, the word, "Apple" appears when he meant "Apply"), but the context should be fairly obvious. When he says to select the drive you want to format FAT32, he means this is within Disk Utility.
The instructions assume you are starting with a jump drive that the Mac recognizes, but might not have MS_DOS FAT32 formatting. Just to be sure, since I don't work in Terminal very much, I probably overdid it, formatted the drive with 1 partition, and chose the Mac OS Extended Journaled format to make a fresh start.
For one thing, if you don't start with the Mac OS format, you might not get the partition menu in Disk Utility, and that's very important. I was working with an old 126Mb jump drive, and I only needed 8Mb, so I made just one partition.
Before you make any changes to the format of the drive, while the format is still Mac OS Extended Journaled, check in the System Profiler, under the Hardware menu, the USB item. Locate the drive identifier. It will look like disk1s#. Mine, for example, was disk1s1. That's the jump drive -- not to put too fine a point on it. You really want the right disk ID, because the command line script totally erases the disk and formats it FAT32.
Once you follow the instructions, you can double-check in Disk Utility. I suggest you quit Disk Utility, then start it again. Click on the newly formatted drive in the left list of the available drives. The FAT32 format should appear in the descriptions below the window in bottom margin. If it shows up at FAT16, try the command line text again: newfs_msdos -F32 -v "yourdrivename" /dev/rdisk1s# [where # is your specific drive's number. Check Tom's items Tech Part > 4. and 5.
In my case, once I had the FAT32 jump drive ready, I had to download the firmware update file. Of course, the Mac could not do anything with it, but it did download. I went to the Downloads folder and dragged the file to the jump drive. I had to change the name of the file, following the manufacturer's instructions. I followed the manufacturer's instructions on everything, and once I had the drive inserted, and powered up the TV, the firmware update took off and did its thing. I'll watch for the hoped-for improvements in performance for a couple of days. I don't want to make the hike back to Cost**.
The beautiful thing about this TV is that it is natively 12 volts, and we plan to use it in our RV. Cool energy savings!
Please don't hold me (or Tom) responsible if something goes wrong. Go slowly and follow the instructions. If you've never used Disk Utility or Terminal, back away from this process and try something safer.
Holiday cheers,
Anne

How to configure the monitoring computer to see the Xserve Raid

Finally I got My Xserve RAID.
I mounted It using disk utility as a single big disk.
But i don't know how to use RAID Admin since no List of System on subnet is present.
How do i change these setting on the monitoring computer?
I can write to the Xserve and i can read from it but I cannot use RAID Admin.
The fibre Channel utility is working well, do I have to change the setting of the PCI card?
I'd like to leave It as a single 2.7 Tb disk RAID 5, but sliced in smaller disk (Lun ?)
Please Help.
Thank you in advance
umberto

Now IT is Buidilng the Raid 5 across all the 7 disk. I unmount it from the desktop and shut It down via Raid Admin
Building a RAID 5 array takes hours. You can't shut the RAID down while it's doing this, otherwise you will lose the array settings.
I removed the older system and I added a new one that It has a different IP.
Once you connect with RAID Admin you should change the XServe RAID's configuration so that it has an IP address you can remember. If you leave it set to DHCP then it will probably change addresses every time you start it up.

Software RAID as startup volume

I want to get 4 velociraptor hard drives for my mac pro. If I create a software RAID 0 in Disk Utility, and reinstall Leopard on that volume, can I use it as a startup volume? If you can, does it take longer for the computer to startup?
Thanks

Firstly, I'm assuming that you have an extra external disk for time machine. So in order to restore to the raid, maybe instead of using time machine clone it using superduper. Just to maybe make things easier. Clone the your boot volume to the external, create the raid of all 4 hds in disk utility, then once it's made clone back the boot volume from the external to your raid.
For superduper:
www.shirtpocket.com
But just to reiterate, (and adding to what hatter mentioned) maybe a couple larger 640 or 1 TB Western Digital Blacks might be better, instead of all VRs. You could maybe use 1 VR for your boot drive, and like 2 or 3 WD blacks(if that's what you want to do). 3 x 1TB Blacks might serve you better as you are using video apps.
Or if speed is your main concern, maybe an external enclosure might be a better fit. Sonnet, Firmtek, etc. Raid the drives on the external (using hardware or software raid) and use the internal slots for backup. Of course this will cost more, however it would probably be better for you down the road, especially since you are working with video.
http://www.amug.org/
They have some good reviews for external enclosures.

Disk Utility: "Volume needs repair" - what to do?

I just ran Verify Disk and got this result:
Verifying volume “iBook HD”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Incorrect block count for file Database3_BROKEN-journal
(It should be 25 instead of 0)
0
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
,1)
1733913 /Library/Logs/Console/501/console.log.0
Overlapped extent allocation (file 1734737)
Checking volume bitmap.
Volume Bit Map needs minor repair
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume free block count
(It should be 8593446 instead of 8593471)
The volume iBook HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
How do I repair this volume?
bob.m.

bob:
Disk Utility reports "Underlying task reported failure" when repairing a volume is a serious directory error which Disk Utility cannot repair.
•I suggest you read through the article.
•Then, if you do not have an up-to-date backup, it will be a good idea to try to save as much as you can of your data.
•The article suggests using a third party utility. Disk Warrior and Tech Tool Pro are the best utilities for this job. You will need to get one of them and run it, by booting from the CD, or installing it on an external firewire drive or on a second Mac which you can then run in Firewire Target Disk Mode.
Please do post back with further questions or comments.
Good luck.
cornelius

Problems with Xserve RAID

I have been having problems with Xserve RAID, which happened in a close time span, but may not be related. The Xserve RAID is set up with 7 disks with RAID 5, totaling to 1.3TB in storage capacity.
First, the first disk failed and the RAID system was degraded. Since I got a very similar 250GB harddisk (but without "Apple Firmware") I tried putting it as a replacement. It was recognized but it became a hot spare disk, even though I did not set the system to use hot spare.
Later Mac OS X reported that the Xserve RAID's 1.3TB volume was unmounted. I check with Disk Utility, and it reported a lot of errors. I ended up with about 70GB of files in lost+found, and I confirmed that many files were missing. Disk Utility could not really fixed it.
I put back the failed disk, and Xserve RAID successfully rebuilt the array. I did "Background Array Conditioning" to perform surface scan and mapping of bad blocks. It completed without error. I then did "Verify Parity Data", and it completed but with error, as follows:
Event:
Disk 5 Reported An Error. COMMAND:0x37 ERROR:0x64 STATUS:0x81 LBA:0x119E6880
Description:
The drive reported ATA error. This is a failure in the communication from the RAID Controller to the drive.
Any idea what is happening with this Xserve RAID? Bad disk? Bad controller? Or what? Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Xserve RAID Dual G5 2.0GHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)

After reading here and there on the net (including this forum), yes I realized that the "Apple Firmware" thing may be significant after all. But since I set the Xserve RAID to use RAID 5, a failure of one disk should not affect data integrity. And surface scan was successful, implyingthat all disks are now free from defects. So why did it lost 70GB worth of data? I experienced disk hardware failure often with Windows system but never experienced losing data while the hardware seems to be fine. Without knowing why this happened, I feel scared to put data on Xserve RAID, and this is ironic since this 1.7TB Xserve RAID is meant for storing data safely...

Clarification on how to use Xserve Raid and Fibre Channel without xsan.

First let me apologize for not responding earlier to your response, I tend to get busy and then forget to check back here.
Tod, the answer to your question is No, only one computer is accessing the xserve raid files at any one time and that is via Fibre Channel. However I do have the xserve raids set up as share points via ethernet.
Maybe I should turn that off and only access the files with the one computer that can connect via fibre channel.
I never thought of that. I will try that while I await for your answer, thanks again.
Todd Buhmiller
I have the following setup:
Xserve: 2x2Ghz Dual Core Intel Xeon, 5Gb of Ram, Running 10.5.8 Leopard Server
Xserve Raid with firmware version 1.5.1/1.51c on both controllers, and
Qlogic Sanbox 5600
Apple Fibre Channel Cards in Xserve, and Mac Pro Tower; Apple 2 Port 4Gbs Fibre Channel Card
Mac Pro Tower-Quad Core Intel Xeon 2.8Ghz, 16Gb of Ram, Running Snow Leopard 10.6.4
Here is the problem.
The directory for the xserve raids keep getting corrup, and I use disc warrior to rebuild them. Is there a way to keep the directories from getting corrupt? I am a few pieces of equipment before I can build an Xsan as that is the ultimate goal, but until then, I just need to be able to have the raids funciton as storage without having to rebuild the directories all of the time.
Anybody have any suggestions?
Thanks
Todd Buhmiller
Widescreen Media
Calgary, Alberta Canada
Tod Kuykendall
Posts: 1,237
From: San Diego
Registered: Oct 11, 2000
Re: Xserve Raid Mounts, Corrupt Directory tired of rebuilding directory
Posted: Jun 27, 2010 1:25 PM in response to: Todd Buhmiller
Are multiple computers accessing the same data on the RAID at the same time?
If so then NO. This is the source of your data corruption and I'm surprised if you were able to get all your data back every time if this is how you've been running your system. Each fibre channel assumes it has full and sole control of every volume it has mounted, no data arbitration is practiced and data corruption will occur if this assumption is wrong.
The only way this set-up will work is to use partitions or LUN masks so the volumes are accessed by one computer at any time. As long as one computer relinquishes control before another mounts it you will dodge arbitration issues but this is a dangerous game. If you screw up and mount an already mounted volume - and there is no easy way to tell if a volume is mounted - corruption will then occur. Sharing data simultaneous at fibre speeds is what XSAN does and to do this you need it.
HTH,
=Tod
Intel Xserve, G5 XServes, XRAID, Promise

+The xserve raids will mount automatically to any computer that I connect the qlogic fc switch to+
This is source of the corruption to your data. Any computer that attaches to a drive/partition via fibre channel assumes that it alone is in control of the drive and data corruption is inevitable.
+Is that the issue, should I disconnect the xserve from the fc switch and leave it connected via ethernet?+
Short answer: YES. The ethernet connections are fine because the server is controlling the file arbitration through the sharing protocol. Fibre channel connections assumes complete control over the partition and no arbitration of the file access is performed. It's like two people independently driving trying to drive the same car to different locations.
Depending on your set-up it is possible for the two machines to see and use different parts of the Xserve RAID storage but they cannot access the same areas without SAN doing the arbitration.
Hope that's clear,
=Tod

To Xsan or not to Xsan... bunch of Xserve raids + fibre switch

Hi all,
I have 4 Xserve Raids and a fully licensed Qlogic switch plus an Intel Xserve to share it all.
I went ahead and loaded Lion Server on my Xserve for the "free" Xsan which is shweet but was pondering wether I need the overhead of the Xsan?
My need is just a simple NFS share, nothing fancy.
I was thinking to share 1 Xserve Raid as a volume (striping 2 sides together) and serve the other 3 as another volume (striping 6 sides together).
Any nuggets of wisdom are very much appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
- Brian

There's nothing in your post that implies XSAN is needed.
XSAN is needed if you want to connect multiple hosts to the fiber channel network - in effect, giving each host direct access to the XServe RAIDs.
Since you stated you want '... a simple NFS share', that implies that the host XServe is sharing the XServe RAID volumes over the network, therefore XSAN isn't required.
You might get better performance by connecting the clients to the fiber channel SAN, but it doesn't sound like an issue for you.

Partition Tab Missing: Disk Utility

I've just noticed that the "Partition" tab is missing from Disk Utility.
Suggested correction?

Make sure you have a drive selected, at the left in the left column, not a volume, indented below the drive.

Xserve RAID volume corruption, volumes missing in Disk Utility

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