anoying beep 1

[ozispimp]

wow, i could write a book on how much i hate win 2k.

anyway, the problem is this.. i walk into work today.. and for some reason, the stupid server (which is a dell by the way) is beeping extremely loud.. there's a constant beep, beep, beep.. very steady, very loud.

now i'm not sure on the specifics of our service.. we have a scsi setup.. with 2 drives, and a single processor.. with about 256 megs of ram.

when the computer starts up, everything seems to be fine.. until it starts with the SCSI card.. it scans all the cards, fine.. then it says "spinning drives" and that's when all the problems start.. right after it spins the drives, it starts to omit that loud beep.

so i cracked her open, check to make sure everything to do with the SCSI is seated properly.. surely enough, everything checked out.. and nothing seemed to be wrong with it..

i checked the software.. just problems like "could not find DNS server" and useless little problems that really didn't affect the network, and those errors we've had for quite some time..

one thing, right after it spun the drives.. it said something along the lines of "ALERT! computer has been recently open" i'm the only tech guy here.. i know no one would open the computer.. could it be something in regards to that? also, how do i disconnect that anoying speaker.. i know if its beeping, its trying to tell me something, but who would ever make the beeping noise that loud..

 

[FilthPig]

I'm used to HP hardware, but were it an HP NetRAID SCSI card, it would mean you had a drive fail. There should be an option somewhere in your scsi/raid config to disable or silence the alarm while you look at it. Do you have two physical discs or two logical disks? Are you running any level of RAID? If I were to loose a drive I would certainly want the warning to be unmistakable (read: loud).

Where it's saying that the computer has been recently open, I believe the default on a Dell is to leave that message up until it is cleared manually. There are options in BIOS to configure that.

Marc Creviere

 

[ShackDaddy]

Sounds like a bad drive, but one other option you could check on is whether there are redundant power supplies and one might have died (or at least no longer has power supplied to it, as a result of being unplugged or having a UPS go bad). That causes this sort of noise on a variety of systems.

ShackDaddy

 

[ozispimp]

yeah, i found out that it WAS a bad hard drive.. shack, thanks for the suggestion on checking the power supplies, that's next.. but yeah, i went into the utility setup thing.. and it said that 1 of 3 drives were bad.. which doesn't really make sense to me, cause dell has my computer registered as having only 2 drives, we only have a C: and a D: on the server.. weird ey.

its not allowing me to silence, and if it does, it would only allow it in the utility program correct?? i'm trying to backup now.. but guess what.. that failed as well.. don't you love dell.

so now, i'm trying to make a backup to my computer through the network, i hope i won't need it.. cause that'll be a bitch to get working..

not only that.. guess what else failed today,.. my primary nic card.. reminds me of a d.j. on grand theft auto.. he would say "i wish they all had one big neck, so i could choke it" yes dell, i'm referring to you ;D

 

[FilthPig]

Were one or more of the drives in a RAID array? It sounds like maybe you had a RAID5 (Stripe set with parity) or RAID0 (stripe set without parity). Are you able to access the data on the drives, backup aside (That'd mean RAID1, a mirror set on 2 of the drives)? If it's RAID5, you should be able to replace the disk and rebuild the array and have your data intact. If it's RAID0, you're gonna be restoring.

If you've got warranty coverage, maybe you should call Dell. I've had quick and accurate responses in my dealings with them. Marc Creviere

 

[ozispimp]

wow filth, i really have no idea what you're saying

i called dell, they're good with things, except their hardware.. if you ask me.. ughm, i AM able to access the information on the drives.. good thing, because the backups don't have anything on them.. so yes, the C: and D: (only ones i know of) seem to be working perfectly.. peachtree which runs off the D: works perfectly as well.. and that's whats really important.

maybe you can help me understand this a little more, i'm pretty familiar in the pc world, but not too familiar at all with scsi, and servers..

thanks for the time.

 

[FilthPig]

Ok, we can figure this out using Disk Management (probably.. might be messed with a broken drive).

Open computer management and go to Disk Management. Look at how many physical disks are shown in there. This is all assuming a hardware raid if any, and 3 actual hard drives in the system. If there is one disk (not volume) shown that adds up to the full capacity of all drives, then it is a RAID0 configuration (stripe set with no parity. It writes information across several drives for faster access). I find that unlikely since you can still access data. If you see one physical device that adds up to the total capacity of all disks minus one, then it is a RAID5 configuration (stripe set with parity, same as above, except it provides redundancy. You can lose one disk not lose your data.). Again, I think that unlikely since you can still access your data. If you see two physical disks, each the size of one of the hard drives, then either two of the disks are in a mirror set, or one of the disks was for some reason never used.

***Disclaimer - I'm not sure how Disk Management will look with failed drives. The guidelines above apply to working hardware raid. Results may vary, but I hope that helps. *** Marc Creviere

 

[ozispimp]

ok, i was checkin' things out in there.. it said that it was a something blah blah LD 0 RAID5.. so that's good news right?? does it mean, that chances are i wont have to use a back up?? since all of our information is still accessible with one bad drive..

 

[FilthPig]

Yeah, just make sure you get that drive replaced and the logical disk rebuilt before you lose another disk. Find out what kind of RAID card you have, and refer to the documentation for it on how to rebuild. I'd also try to run another backup before you do. Just in case. Marc Creviere

 

[ozispimp]

thanks marc, i appreciate all your help..

i haven't replaced it.. and am probably going to wait to see if it will fail again.. right now i'm currently rebuilding the drive.. everything seems to be going perfectly.. and i did another backup right before i started rebuilding ;D talk about a weight off my chest..

thanks again,