H194697_SATA_drive_hangs_or_is_not_ready_after_pow

Source

RETAIN tip: H194697

Symptom

After a power cycle, the Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard drive is no longer available and becomes unresponsive. This RETAIN tip is related to specific 3.5-inch SATA hard drives to prevent the hard drive from hanging or becoming not ready after power cycle.

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM Servers:

• DS4200 Storage Server, Type 1814, any model
• DS4700 Storage Server, Type 1814, any model
• DS4800 Storage Server, Type 1815, any model
• DS5100 Storage Controller, Type 1818, any model
• DS5300 Storage Controller, Type 1818, any model
• IBM System Storage DS3200, Type 1726, any model
• IBM System Storage DS3300, Type 1726, any model
• IBM System Storage DS3400, Type 1726, any model

The system is configured with one or more of the following IBM Option part numbers:

• 1000 GB 7200 rpm SATA E-DDM, Option part number 44X2458, replacement part number (FRU) 44X2459
• 500 GB 7200 rpm SATA E-DDM, Option part number 39M4554, replacement part number (FRU) 39M4557
• DS4200 1000 GB 7200 rpm SATA EV-DDM, Option part number 44X2454, replacement part number (FRU) 44X2455
• DS4200 500 GB SATA EV-DDM, Option part number 42D0389, replacement part number (FRU) 42D0392
• DS4200 750 GB 7200 rpm SATA II EV-DDM, Option part number 43W9738, replacement part number (FRU) 43W9720

The level BB10 firmware for the SATA hard drive is affected.

This tip is not Operating System specific.

Solution

To determine the hard drives model, use the IBM DS Storage Manager or the label on the hard drive. Firmware level BB10 on the following models are affected:

• ST31000340NS
• ST3250310NS
• ST3500320NS
• ST3750330NS

For System Storage DS3000 products, the Fix is available from the "IBM DS3000 SAS / SATA HDD Update Pack v4.5" or later.

For System Storage DS4000 and DS5000 products, the Fix is available from the "IBM DS ESM and HDD firmware bundle version 1.61" or later.

Either of these can be found under the specific IBM System Storage Product at the following support web site:

• IBM System Support

IBM strongly recommends applying this firmware update to prevent this issue.

As always, IBM recommends backing up all data before applying hard drive firmware updates.

Workaround

Users can limit their exposure to this issue by limiting the number of power cycles performed or avoiding power cycles completely.

Additional information

This rare condition is caused by a hard drive firmware issue that allows the hard drive's "event log" pointer to be set to an invalid location.

This condition is detected by the hard drive during power up, and the hard drive goes in to failsafe mode to prevent inadvertent corruption. As a result, once the failure has occurred, the user's data becomes inaccessible.

The condition only occurs after a power cycle and not during runtime. Therefore, avoiding or minimizing power cycles will greatly reduce the chances of SATA hard drives becoming inoperable after a power cycle.

If this event occurs on multiple SATA hard drives in the same array, it can cause loss of access.