Replacing a hard drive of my RAID 5 system just ruined my OS X 10.6.8 server... help...

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Replacing a hard drive of my RAID 5 system just ruined my OS X 10.6.8 server... help...

My system is MacPro 2009 with 10.6.8 server and Apple RAID card. Last week, RAID util just notified me of one drive is not viable, so i decided to replace the drive today. The configuration of my system is...

There is an Apple Raid Card for HW Raid system

Bay 1 = 640 TB drive with Mac OS X 10.6.8 server installed

Bay 2, 3, 4 = 1.5 TB drives set up as RAID 5

below is what I did to replace the degraded Bay 4...

1. I shut down the system

2. replaced the corrupted drive with the new hard drive

3. tried start the machine again...

Now my machine refuses to start up with the blinking question mark... I guess that the system fails to recognize the new drive or cannot find the system files...

4. So I put back the degraded drive...

5. The machine still won't start...

6. I tried to use the 10.6 server installation disk to boot up the machine to check if I can fix the system via disk util; but, everytime I do this, I got kernel panic... 😟

7. resetting PR Ram didn't help, cannot boot up via safe mode as well (since the system file is not accessible now, I guess...).

8. booting via 10.6.2 server installation DVD still gives me kernel panic... 😟

Why would my system corrupt by just replacing one degrade drive? The Mac OS X is not even the part of the Raid system... How am I supposed to fix this issue with out the installation disk?

This Apple Raid card is driving me nuts now... 😟

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jul 2, 2012 2:28 AM

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Answer 1

Kann Author

Level 1

1 points

Jul 2, 2012 8:37 PM in response to Kann

Any suggestions, any help..., any one?

😢😢😢

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Answer 2

Jul 3, 2012 8:37 PM in response to Kann

Well, a couple thoughts...

If the drive in bay 4 was part of the RAID, and you shut down the server and replaced that HD, then there's nothing that would make me think the failed RAID member has anythig to do with what's happening.

The obvious question, not to insult you, is, are you sure you swapped out the correct HD - although you should still be able to boot from the DVD.

Perhaps you ran into some bad memory, or the RAID card itself is bad. You can try swapping out some memory and/or re-seating the memory, as well as removing the RAID card and trying to boot with just the OS HD installed.

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Answer 3

Kann Author

Level 1

1 points

Jul 3, 2012 9:31 PM in response to Jeff Kelleher

Hi Jeff,

I think I am pretty really sure that I did swap the correct drive. More confusion to me is the Mac OS went corrupted as well.

I did try booting up with just one OS HD installed, and still got the folder with blinking question mark at the beginning of the screen...

Why I cannot boot with the installation DVD is also unknown. It always give me kernel panic right after the Apple logo...

What I am going to do to day is to install another 10.6 server on an external hard drive and will try to boot from USB. May be I should try removing the RAID card also...

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Answer 4

Kann Author

Level 1

1 points

Jul 4, 2012 2:04 AM in response to Kann

Something weird is definitely happening to my OS HD. Here is my updates to the problem.

1. I just put the old corrupted HD into the Bay 4, and tried to restart the machine again.. still not bootable

2. So I replaced the OS HD from the Bay 1 with a new blank 2TB WD green drive, and use the 10.6 server DVD to boot up the machine. This time I didn't get the kernel panic.

3. Checked the RAID partition, everything is still intact, but the RAID utility is still complaining about Bay 4 being not viable...

4. I replaced the blank drive from the Bay 1 again with the previously installed 10.6.8 server HD. This time the machine refused to boot up and threw that infamous folder with question mark error...

5. So, I replace the bay 1 with blank HD, and installed the 10.6.0 server this time. The RAID partition is now initialized and can bee seen from the OS. RAID utility still complains about one disk being not viable. Now I am syncing and backing up all the data from the RAID 5 partition and try to figure out what is wrong here...

More specifically, my current set up is...

bay 1 = 2.0 TB JBOD+

bay 2 = 1.5 TB registered to RAID 5, viable but degraded

bay 3 = 1.5 TB registered to RAID 5, viable but degraded

bay 4 = 1.5 TB registered to RAID 5, not viable

The previous OS drive was also set up as JBOD+ to the RAID card, and was not supposed to be a part of the RAID system. I wonder why changing one drive at the Bay 4 did corrupt the system, though.

Also, now I am a bit freaked out and do not dare to change any drive yet... How am I supposed to appropriately change the failed drive? Should I just shut down the system and remove the drive from Bay 4 like last time? 😐

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