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While observing our file server yesterday, I witnessed a BSOD, and after a restart, the Server OS (2003) cant boot. We have 6 raid drives. I noticed the disk lights and discovered the first four from the right were giving an amber light.

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I swapped the 6 disks and put them into another backup server that we have and no amber light, all green.

When I put the other 6 drives from the backup server into the file server, first four also were amber, so I deduced all the disks are OK, it has to be something on the server

What could cause the issue with the server?

ewwhite
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Prince Nnamdi
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1 Answers1

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You likely have a backplane failure on the HP ProLiant ML370 G3 server you're using. That system is over 12 years-old and has been end-of-life for 10 years.

It sounds like you had a spare chassis to allow you to continue working, so that's good. But by process of elimination, if the disks are okay and the RAID controller is okay, then the backplane is the problem.

It's HP part #263035-001

enter image description here

ewwhite
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  • hi ewwhite, thanks for your answer. putting the drives in the backup chasis , it couldnt load the os, it said Non-system disk or disk error. but at least no amber light – Prince Nnamdi Jul 28 '15 at 13:28
  • @ewwhite How do we know the RAID controller is ok? – Datarecovery.com MK Jul 28 '15 at 17:14
  • Because the RAID controller connects to the backplane via a 68-pin SCSI connector. Any issues reflected on the 80-pin SCA ports used by the drives would be backplane problems. – ewwhite Jul 28 '15 at 17:16
  • hi @ewwhite does the issue also affect the BIOS or the Smart Array? – Prince Nnamdi Jul 29 '15 at 12:43
  • No. The server is very old. I'm not sure what options you have right now. – ewwhite Jul 29 '15 at 12:45
  • hi @ewwhite i swapped the backplane from the backup chasis...no more amber light, but it cant load the OS, it says non system disk or disk failure – Prince Nnamdi Jul 29 '15 at 13:30
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    You may have disk array corruption from the backplane failure. There's no guarantee that the data is okay. Try booting with a rescue CD to see if there's any structured data on the drive. When you start the system, does it tell you how many "Logical Drives" exist on the Smart Array? – ewwhite Jul 29 '15 at 13:31