Compaq 3200 manual Compromised Fault Tolerance, H-6 Recovering from Drive Failure

H-6Recovering from Drive Failure

Compromised Fault Tolerance

If fault tolerance is compromised because of failure of multiple drives, the condition of the logical drive will be “failed,” and “unrecoverable” errors will be returned to the host. Data loss is probable. Inserting replacement drives at this time will not improve the condition of the logical drive. If this occurs, first try turning the entire system off and on. In some cases, an intermittent drive will appear to work again (perhaps long enough to make copies of important files) after cycling power. If a 1779 POST message is displayed, press F2 to re-enable the logical drive(s). Remember that data loss has likely occurred and any data on the logical drive is suspect.

Fault tolerance may be compromised due to non-drive problems such as a faulty cable, faulty storage system power supply, or an end user accidentally turning off an external storage system while the host system power was on. In such cases, the physical drives do not need to be replaced. However, data loss can occur, especially if the system was busy at the time the problem happened.

In cases of “legitimate” drive failure, once copies of important data have been made (if possible), replace any drives that have failed to prevent further drive problems in the future. After these (multiple) drives are replaced, fault tolerance may again be compromised, power may need to be cycled, and the 1779 POST message may again be displayed. Press F2 to re-enable the logical drive(s), recreate your partitions, and restore all data from backup.

Because of the risk that fault tolerance may be compromised at some point in the future, make regular backups of all logical drives.