From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Douglas Gilbert Subject: Re: Recover SCSI disks Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 11:11:39 +1000 Message-ID: <4358404B.9080006@torque.net> References: Reply-To: dougg@torque.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from zorg.st.net.au ([203.16.233.9]:10981 "EHLO borg.st.net.au") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S964820AbVJUBKh (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Oct 2005 21:10:37 -0400 In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-scsi-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org To: Robin Bowes Cc: linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org Robin Bowes wrote: > Hi, > > I've got a Compaq U2 storage array connected to a Compaw Smart 2/p > controller with an assortment of 4.3GB and 9.1GB disks that I use for > testing purposes. > > Some of the drives have "died" on me, i.e. I get yellow lights when they > are plugged into the arrays. > > Is it possible to do anything low-level to ressurect these drives? e.g. > take them out of their caddies, connected them directly to a SCSI > controller and low-level format them or something? > > (There's no data on them - I just want them to work again!) > > Any suggestions appreciated. Robin, You may like to fetch sg3_utils and try sg_format thus: sg_format /dev/sda assuming a disk you have fetched from the array is placed at /dev/sda . If that fails, the disk is probably dead. Otherwise it should tell you several things (and doesn't change anything). Often drives in RAIDs are formatted to a sector size slightly greater than 512 bytes. To re-use the disk (freestanding) in linux you will need to format it back 512 bytes thus: sg_format --format --size=512 /dev/sda A format may not be needed. In any case, the next step would usually be to partition the disk (e.g. with fdisk) then make a file system on one or more of its partitions (e.g. with mkfs.ext3 ). The disk (or at least its partition) should then be ready to mount and use. Doug Gilbert