[rescue] StorageWorks cabinet rescue

[William W. Arnold]

Eric Dittman <dittman at dittman.net> writes ---
>> Question 1) 8Gig seems rather small, shouldn't it be ~20G?
>> I don't see any errors in the configuration.
>
>Post the output of SHOW DEVICE and SHOW RAID.

I'd already checked that.  It showed the correct size.

I figured this out.  It appears that I happened to end
up with the same 1st drive as was used for a previous
configuration,  with the valid partition label from
that config.  Format was reading the old data, and not
querying the drive at all.  After a
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s2
it reads the correct size.

Unfortunatly, after being on overnight, the battery finally
changed state from "Cache battery charge is low" to
"Cache battery failed diagnostic testing"

Which disables all RAID5 disksets.  I've fallen back to
a simple stripe, but I'd like to get it fixed.
Is there any chance it'll finish charging eventually,
or am I going to have to buy new batteries?  If buy,
where might I find them?  BTW: I am told that it sat
powered-down for more than 2 years.  Could this have damaged
the batteries?

>> Question 2) Can I just pull the old drives out of the carriers
>> and put in new, large drives?  Or does it require specific
>> drives?  If specific drives, which will work, does it depend on
>> the controller firmware, if so where can I get the latest/greatest
>> firmware?
>
>You can install larger drives, but you'll have to be careful
>to either get drives that have the same SCSI ID pinouts, or
>jumper the drives to a specific ID and then make sure you
>don't cause any conflicts.  You also are limited with the
>BA350 to narrow drives, and from the firmware you have I
>think 4.3G disks.  I have a later firmware I can email you,
>which you can upgrade using kermit on the serial port.

Thanks, please do. How large does the later firmware allow?

Also: so those are BA350 shelves?  I saw some mention of them in
my google searches, but wasn't sure.  I'll go look at what I can
find on them now.

>> Question 3) Where can I find documentation for this?
>> I have a copy of the "SWXRC-04 RAID Array Controller User's Guide"
>> that came with it, but I'd like to find out as much as I can.
>
>Is this the large (~1 inch think) manual?

yep. Actually, there are 2 of them.  If anyone wants one
I'll give it away for free.  It's appears pretty good for
information about the command line utilities, and how
to swap parts, but it doesn't go into the things one
needs to know how far one can go outside the suplied
hardware.

>> Question 4) does anyone have spare SBB's that I can have?
>> I might even be willing to pay :-)
>
>These are available cheap on eBay.

I saw a few after I emailed.  I'll probably be bidding before long.

Thanks for the information.

-- 
-billy-