Per HPs recommendation after doing a SmartArray firmware upgrade, I did a firmware upgrade to a RAID set containing 5 HP EG0900FBLSK drives (ST9900805SS) with firmware HPD3. HP says to upgrade them to HPD7, but the update tool said it did not apply to them, so I did from HPD3 to HPD4, that said it applies, but as luck will have it, two of those drives went dead after de upgrade. Now I need to recover data in the RAID volume that was not backed up.

The drives do not show in the SmartArray, but do show when connected to a LSI SATA/SAS HBA, still with firmware HPD3, but capacity 0. hydata free seagate SAS tool (ran it to get information, I know it will no fix them) says they are offline, and do not spin. S/N of the drive still shows, nothing else.

Q1: In your experience, are the drives recoverable?
Q2: What will be the best course of action?

Thanks for the advice.

A1: yes
A2: use a PROFESSIONAL tool to diagnose the bricked drives ad then fix what is wrong.

Sorry , duplicated post please remove

Dear Friend mmoran69

A1: Definatly Recoverable No Dout.
A2: i can do it with my non pro tools too.

Sorry For My Bad English.

Yours Friend
Jignesh Pankhania

The OP will be happy then...

A drive ALL ALONE does spin at power up hosted on a hba or not ? If not, the fun starts here...

Actually with any drive of the same type (HP SAS), they will start spinning when the SmartArray controller is initialized. Same when connected to the LSI controller.

Thanks all for the encouraging news...

Talked with a data recovery company and they want me to ship all drives to extract the data. I would prefer to send the bad drives for repair (including a drive in working condition if need for the firmware) assuming that they'll return with the data intact, and I'll be able to insert them bank in the array and that it will be online as if nothing happened.

Is it possible? If so, can you recommend anyone in the U.S. (south-east) to do it ?

This behaviour is described in section 4.9 of the following document:

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Interface Manual, Rev. C:
http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/supp ... 93071c.pdf

It is also described in section 4.3 of the product manual:

Product Manual Savvio 10K.5 SAS:
http://www.seagate.com/files/www-conten ... 28561j.pdf

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

the request for the complete set is correct , they want to fix the bricked drives then rebuild the array SAFELY, I would do the same.
And as it is a RAID stripe it is a bad idea to try DIY solutions (your data, your choice anyway) especially on SS. Consider also that if the fw upgrade went wrong , there was something going wrong under. So said, you can estimate if the time to spend , server downtime and possibility of data loss are worth. Side note, as I see everyday various degrees of disastered data case with DIY intervention, consider that usually the same people who encourage DIY solutions copy/pasted from the internet do not run a data recovery REGULAR OFFICIAL business and when things go bad they simply go away whistling saying "Well I did my best, it's your problem" - success has many fathers, failure is orphan by default. Good luck whatever you decide

Hi Dear Friend mmoran69

Yes Its Possible Damaged In The Firmware Not Make Any Changes In Data Area Firmware Are Stored In The Drives SA (Sevice Area) If Some Very Imp Key Modules Are Intact And There Is No Changes Then Ur Drive Is Recoverable By Repairing It To Make It Work Again. As Per My Knoledge The Firmware Update Utility Never Touch That Key Modules That Required For Maintain Drive Defect List And Other Things.
No More Discussion In Deep In This Question Bcoz Everything Is Not For Open Discosure.

Your Friend
jignesh pankhania

Dear Friend BlackST

I Am Agree With You. Definatly This Drive And Problem Is Not For DIY if Data Is Very Important.
I seen Many Time this type of cases give less then 3 chances for sucessfully recovery.
need enough good knoledge + much experiance for resolved this type of issue.
dear friend mmoran69 if u realy need ur data back definatly contact who is able to do this case handle.

sorry for my bad english

yours friend
jignesh pankhania