Handling Disk Drive Failures - Compaq 219700-001 - ProLiant - 1500 Reference Manual

6-12
Installing the Operating System Drivers

Handling Disk Drive Failures

Although drive failures are not common, they may occur; it is important to
protect your critical data. The best way to recover from a failed drive is to
configure your drive system with some form of fault-tolerance.
To ensure a quick and transparent recovery, Compaq recommends that you
configure your SMART-2DH Controller with hardware fault tolerance. An
advantage of hardware fault tolerance is that the controller is able to perform a
background surface analysis on the hard drives to monitor for bad sectors and
remap data to a new location on the media. This feature enhances the
reliability and availability of your data. Compaq also recommends that you
use good backup procedures, in case of catastrophic failure.
If you discover a failed drive, perform the following steps:
Identify and document which physical drive has failed. Note the drive
type and capacity.
Note which partition and volume, if any, has failed. This information is
provided in the error message on the server console. It is also recorded
in the server error log file which may be viewed using the SYSCON
utility (intraNetWare 3.12) or NWADMIN utility (NetWare 4.x).
Make sure that you have a recent backup. If the drive is part of a fault-
tolerant mirrored volume, or a hardware fault-tolerant volume, you will
be able to backup the data again in case of a second drive failure.
Locate a replacement drive of the same type and capacity.
Follow the instructions in the sections below for replacing a drive for
your particular server configuration.
DOS Partitions and
NetWare/intraNetWare Fault Tolerance
NetWare/intraNetWare does not mirror information on DOS partitions. Only
hardware fault tolerance supports mirrored DOS partitions. If you have a
mirrored drive containing a DOS partition, you need to restore the DOS
partition information from another backup source.
Writer: Pamela King Project: SMART-2DH Array Controller Reference Guide Comments: 295469-002
File Name: G-CH06.DOC Last Saved On: 2/27/98 12:01 PM
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