DriveStation Duo: harddisk error?

[ubootfanat]

   

Hi!

 

I do have an annoying problem. A view days ago I plugged in my drivestation using the usb-port. Drivestation starts up, everyting seems fine. But then both lights remained green and the drive does not mount.

 

I switched off and restarted. The result was different. Both LEDs remained green and one LED shows constant red additionally.

 

Knowledge base says: red one is dead - replace. So I replaced the drive with a freshly bought drive. same size, same speed but seagate instead. I switched on the drivestation. nothing changes. still both lights green + same red on.

 

Next I took the drive marked dead and put it into an external adapter. the drive starts up without any troubles, I can use it as any working external drive. So the drive marked as dead by the drivestation does work actually.

 

I reported this to Buffalo Support and they told me that the drivestation may be broken.

 

So I put both drives in my second Drivestation Duo which works definitly. Startup and surprise: same issue. one LED red, both green. Also I put the drives from the working drivestation into the expected broken one. and also that works absolutely fine.

 

So what does prevent the drivestation from accepting the drives? Any ideas?

best regards

 

ubootfanat

 

my System:

Ubuntu 8.10
Dell Latitude E6400

 

DriveStation:

type: HD-W500IU2/R1-DE

serial: 95591070700337G

drives in drivestation: Samsung  SP2504C

Message Edited by ubootfanat on 04-03-2009 08:46 AM

[Dustrega]

Try downloading the http://www.buffalotech.com/support/validate/?OHxIRC1XSVUyX1JBSURfVVRJTDExMGIyLnppcA==" target="_blank">RAID utility and restructuring the array. It's possible that there is an inconsistency in the RAID array which would explain why the one HDD (marked bad) is still working and by replacing the HDD (with the new one) yields the same error.

[ubootfanat]

   

thanks for the hint but I already tried that. the problem is that the drivestation device does nether show up in device list of winXP Pro SP3 nor in /dev/ of ubuntu 8.10. so I (Raid utility) cannot talk to the device.

 

In the meanwhile I put in the new drive and the marked drive in the drivestation (and removing the good one) - both without any filesystems. Both LEDs remained red. But also in this case the devicelists do not show the drivestation. Further the drivestation does not need a second to detect the drive(s) as faulty. So there might be something within the drives the drivestation can check very quickly. Any idea how this could work?

 

I am on holiday for 2 weeks now. Back at my drivestation I will try to fill the marked drive with dd if=/dev/zero. I will try a low level format in case of no success. I will post a report here.

 

any other ideas?

 

thanks very much up to now

ubootfanat

[Dustrega]

Could possibly be a HDD controller error on the system board in which case I would call our tech support for an RMA setup.

[ubootfanat]

   

Hi. Back from holiday.

 

It might be possible. I already contacted the support by email a month ago. They assumed that the drive controller itself may be faulty.

 

But.

I tried switching the 2 drives of my drivestation. And it shows always the same drive! as faulty. Next I took both drives out of the "maybe" faulty device and put them into my second drivestation (same model, same year, same order, other data) and this drivestation acts exactly the same as the "maybe" faulty one. So I do not believe that there is some problem with the drivestations. Or there is a real big problem with all drivestation...

 

I just do not want to spend another 50€ for another new drive, that most likely does not work either.

 

So currently my computer fills one drive with /dev/zero using an external adaptor.

 

 I will post a report on that when it is done.

 

thanks in the meanwile

ubootfanat

[ubootfanat]

   

so here is the report:

 

now when I put the freshly zeroed drive and the good one into the drivestation, the LED of the good one is dark and the led of the zero-filled drive shows a permanent green.

but there is still nothing in the devicelists of winxp/ubuntu. however I think thats a great outcome.

 

may it be that a totally clean drive is not accepted by the drivestation? I mean, do I have to copy the partition table to the new drive?

 

[ubootfanat]

   Hi!

So this is my solution for all having the same issue.

After a few days I switched of the drivestation showing one dark one constant green. Restarting throws me back to the very first problem described in the very first post here.

*Solution:*
I zero-filled my freshly bought drive and one of my drivestation-drives and put them into the drivestation. And there it was in the devicelists again. After initializing and formatting the drivestation works fine again. Last I copied my data from the remaining drive.

So what is the purpose of the drivestation
It works fine as long as it works. A small failure on one of the drives ends in inaccessible data and maybe remarkable data loss. I spent two months in contacting support, posting and debugging on my own. In the end I had to zero-fill one of my drives to get a working drivestation again.
In short the device works as long as you do not need it. So why should anybody buy such a device? I for my part will never do that again.

thanks for all

ubootfanat