HD do not spin up in the SC 101

[MarcusX]

After a couple of weeks running without a problem the SC 101 did not power up my hard drives, or they were prevented from spinning up.

The green light was blinking fast. The SC 101 was not detectable in the system, neither by the WinXP GUI, nor the z-scan command line utility not as attached device on the Netgear router.

The filed ticket with Netgear resulted in an RMA (after almost a year ) and I got a new SC 101.

This new device is now being recognised but only when I use one of the pair of HDs I used.

When I put the 2nd in, the SC 101 shows the same symptoms as before.

On the working drive I can only see the non mirrored partition. The mirrored partition is not recognised or indicated as broken.

Now the strange thing is that as soon as I plug one of the 2 IDE cable of the SC 101 to the not working HDs it spins down, stops and the green light flashes constantly. If its plugged before powering up the SC 101 the "not working" HD does not spin up and also the other HD is being blocked and does not spin up and the whole SC 101 disappears from the network. The green status light is blinking fast.

This non working HD however is perfectly working, as I have just tested it with Seagates Seatool and it passed the long generic test without any problems.

As the SC 101 uses a generic file system I am however unable to recover my lost data without getting this HD to work in the SC 101 again.

I have tried to swich sides in the SC 101, checked if the jumpers are really set right, used another jumper piece, used an external power supply for the HD, all that didn't help.

Does anyone of you have any suggestion how I could bring back to life my SC 101?

[Jack™]

I suspect your power supply unit is the culprit and not the SC101.
Was the power supply also replaced in the RMA or only the SC101 enclosure?

Anyhow, use an external PC power supply and connect 2 power connectors of the power supply to the hard disks.

Hopefully your system will come to life....

[MarcusX]

Thank you for the reply.

Sorry for not mentioning that this was also what I suspected, so I used another fitting supply to power the SC 101. No change. I also directly plugged the HD on a separate power supply from a USB-IDE HD adaptor. But the HD stops at the moment when I connect it with the IDE cable of the SC 101 or doesn't spin up when it's connected before being powered.

Quite a mystery as the identical other HD is not behaving that way.

A side question:
I mirrored half of the data. The mirrored partition can be seen using the z-scan utility, the storage manager however does not give me the option to repare the broken mirror, even worse, it qualifies it as broken drive and would offer to delete it... Is that a frequent malfunction?

[Jack™]

Install that HD in a PC (change jumpers accordingly) and check if Windows recognizes the disk.
It seems this disk is malfunctioning if Windows does not recognizes it.
If it is recognized but stops when connected to the SC101, then the SC101 has a problem. Try other HDs without important data if the SC101 works.
You need somehow to localize the problem.

Re your broken mirror problem:
The SCM could not repair the mirror. It is possible that the repair was already done. To be sure, we need the status of the drive: post a 'z-scan listall' and 'z-scan getpart' for each found partition. See my sticky How to post 'listall' and 'getpart' information - the complete guide for more information.

To attach this broken mirror, perform a long (~ 60 sec. ) reset and then attach.
If that fails, uninstall the SCM software, clean your registry with f.i. Ccleaner, reboot 2x and install again the software. Alternatively, use a PC that never was used for the SC101 and install on this PC the SCM software for the first time. Then try to attach the drive.

[MarcusX]

Hello, and thanks again for trying to help me


I. "Bad drive - not being powered up by the SC101

As my new PCs mainboard does not support IDE drives I have to try to find a solution tomorrow. I have used a USB/IDE adapter to perform the drive test of the "problematic" Seagate drive with Seatools. It has passed the short and the long test without any problems. Seatools does not provide any infos in its protocol besides:

--------------- SeaTools for Windows v1.2.0.0 ---------------
30.10.2009 19:00:32
Unit Serial: --------
Unit Model: ST3320620A
Model: ST3320620A
Serial Number: --------
Firmware Revision: ----
Short Generic - Started 30.10.2009 19:01:19
Short Generic - Pass 30.10.2009 19:03:01
Short Generic - Started 30.10.2009 19:24:01
Short Generic - Pass 30.10.2009 19:25:44
Short Generic - Started 07.11.2009 14:57:43
Short Generic - Pass 07.11.2009 14:59:25
Long Generic - Started 07.11.2009 15:01:10
Long Generic - Pass 07.11.2009 16:24:03

I have a pair of these Seagate drives, the one works fine (besides that the mirror can not be repaired) and the other does block the whole Netgear device if used in it. Either inserted alone or together with the other HD the SC 101 will not power up the HDs and start to blink green. The same drive that does block the SC101 can however be plugged to a USB adapter and can be accessed and tested successfully by Seatools for Windows.

If I look at the Windows overview I find an uninitilaised drive with unallocated space as you can see on this screenshot:

http://i1.fastup.de/show.asp?file=Ne...creenshot2.jpg



II. "Good drive - with broken mirror


Z-scan results of the "working" HD are the following:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Network Adapter : RT73 USB Wireless LAN Card - DSL-Manager Miniport
IP Address : 0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask : 0.0.0.0
IP Address not configured
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Network Adapter : VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter - DSL-Manager Miniport
IP Address : 192.168.1.2
Subnet Mask : 255.255.255.0
Discovering uSAN with this network adapter, please wait...
Finding roots...
Found root IP = 192.168.1.3
root 192.168.1.3 "" has 2 partitions
Market class=0 64, Manuf code=9 64 241, Part num=0 0 101
================================================== =============================
VERSION : 4.23.0 ROOT IP ADDR : 192.168.1.3
TOTAL(MB): 305240 # PARTITIONS : 2
FREE (MB): 88
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PARTITION LABEL IP ADDR SIZE (MB)
4C4FF282-5D7C-11DC-8591-0012BFC47E1B.m1 Photos 192.168.1.4 51200
1E1ACDCA-5D7D-11DC-8591-0012BFC47E1B Daten1 192.168.1.5 253952
================================================== =============================
1 MicroSAN found within subnet 192.168.1.255


================================================== ============================
USER NAME : Daten1
UNIQUE NAME : 1E1ACDCA-5D7D-11DC-8591-0012BFC47E1B
READ TOKEN :
WRITE TOKEN :
ATTRIBUTE : 00 00 00 00 00 00 FF 00 01 00 01 00 00 00 02 00
: 00 11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 AA BB CC DD EE key
r r r r r r r MC MC VM VM BS r r Str/Wr/Sp/Sh/Ow
================================================== ============================
MirrorCount=1 ValidMirrorCount=1 StripeBlockSize=0 (0 KBytes)
Owned=0 Shared=1 Spanned=0 Written=0 Striped=0
FORWARD state=15 ("unknown")
COPYTO state=15 ("unknown"), progress=0 (0%)

================================================== ============================
USER NAME : Photos
UNIQUE NAME : 4C4FF282-5D7C-11DC-8591-0012BFC47E1B.m1
READ TOKEN :
WRITE TOKEN :
ATTRIBUTE : 00 00 00 00 00 00 FF 00 02 00 02 00 00 00 02 00
: 00 11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 AA BB CC DD EE key
r r r r r r r MC MC VM VM BS r r Str/Wr/Sp/Sh/Ow
================================================== ============================
MirrorCount=2 ValidMirrorCount=2 StripeBlockSize=0 (0 KBytes)
Owned=0 Shared=1 Spanned=0 Written=0 Striped=0
FORWARD state=15 ("unknown")
COPYTO state=15 ("unknown"), progress=0 (0%)


Plugged to a brand new Vista system and after the recommended reset I got a broken mirror message and the message that it can't be repaired automatically, and that I need to contact the Netgear support as you can see on the following screenshot:

[Jack™]

Strange, I haven't yet seen a MoBo that doesn't have at least one IDE connector for legacy peripherals......
But if the z-scan shows results, then the HD is OK.

Re blinking fast: Interpreting SC101 Green light (Power) Status

Try to lend a SC101 including powersupply to find out if your SC101 has a problem. Alternatively, use two good functioning HD's to see if you can set up a mirror on your SC101 box.

You have 2 drives on that HD:
the "Daten1" drive seems to be a standard, shared drive while the "Photos" drive is the slave part of a mirror.
However, the status is not broken and that is quite unique.
Especially when while installing the software, the broken mirror message appeared. In most cases, the slave part of a mirror is set to broken when the master part cannot be found. This did not happen in your case.

The mirror drive in its current state needs the other part of the mirror which you don't have as long as you cannot mount both HDs at the same time.

3 Options:

1. Let Netgear solve your problem with a remote access if you are entitled to this support. I know Germany did offer this service in the past....
2. DIY1: Downgrade to firmware 4.19.0 and repair with UT_FULL. More info can be found in some stickies here. Netgear advises against this, but some users reported successful repair.
3. DIY2: Remove all drives with z-scanplus remvpart. Then create a single partition covering the total capacity of the HD. Attach so you'll get a drive letter and then use SFSExtract WDISK to recover anything recoverable on the disk (this is called the wrapper method).

[MarcusX]

Thank you,

sorry I tried to be structured but I caused maybe some confusion...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have one drive of a former pair of identical Seagate HDs that still works in the SC101 and that I call "Good drive - with broken mirror".
On this drive you can find the above mentioned 2 partitions, one of them is a broken mirror partition that seems to be difficult to recover if I understood you correctly because the SC101 software doesn't recognise the broken status, and only Netgear can help me to get access to this mirrored data without destroying the file structure and using brute force recovery methods if I understood you correctly?

This recovery would most likely not be needed if the second drive would been recognised and powered again by the SC101 unit?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The other drive of the pair I call "Bad drive - not being powered up by the SC101". It doesn't spin up when plugged into the SC101 and also prevents the other drive in the SC101 to spin up. Even powered with an external supply in the SC101 it doesn't spin up as long as the IDE cable of the SC101 is plugged. If you remove that IDE cable it spins up again.

It doesn't matter in which bay I put the drive.

This "bad" drive plugged to a USB/IDE adapter works fine and even passed the tests of the Seagate drive test software Seatools. So from the point of view of the manufacturer of this drive it is in perfect working condition.

If I plug this drive alone or together with the "good" drive to the SC101 I get this:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Network Adapter : RT73 USB Wireless LAN Card - DSL-Manager Miniport
IP Address : 0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask : 0.0.0.0
IP Address not configured
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Network Adapter : VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter - DSL-Manager Miniport
IP Address : 192.168.1.2
Subnet Mask : 255.255.255.0
Discovering uSAN with this network adapter, please wait...
Finding roots...
================================================== =============================
0 MicroSAN found within subnet 192.168.1.255

For this drive you suggest that plug it onto an IDE connector inside of a PC to verify if Windows will recognise it also in that environment. Should I also repeat the Seatools drive test? As it is a proprietary file system I suppose Windows will show the same status that I already got when I plugged the drive to a USB/IDE adapter and I won't be able to get access to the drive that way?

I do not understand however why I should equip the unit with 2 other drives.
If those would work like they should, what would be the conclusion?

[Jack™]

Originally Posted by MarcusX

......that seems to be difficult to recover if I understood you correctly because the SC101 software doesn't recognise the broken status, and only Netgear can help me to get access to this mirrored data without destroying the file structure and using brute force recovery methods if I understood you correctly?

Correct.
Either Netgear of one of the 3 methods can resolve this situation.

This recovery would most likely not be needed if the second drive would been recognised and powered again by the SC101 unit?

Maybe.

Even powered with an external supply in the SC101 it doesn't spin up as long as the IDE cable of the SC101 is plugged.

That makes this HD defect. Doesn't matter if it works in a USB/IDE adapter. Connecting it to the IDE cable in a PC and testing if Windows recognizes the drive is basically the same as what you did.

I do not understand however why I should equip the unit with 2 other drives.
If those would work like they should, what would be the conclusion?

To completely remove any doubt that the SC101 is working for 100%, you need to populate the box with 2 other HDs. If that works then you have proof there is something wrong with that 'bad' HD.

If I plug this drive alone or together with the "good" drive to the SC101 I get this:
...
....

0 MicroSAN found within subnet 192.168.1.255

You said that as soon as you connect the 'bad' HD the SC101 crashes. So obviously, z-scan can't find anything.

[MarcusX]

Originally Posted by Jack™

To completely remove any doubt that the SC101 is working for 100%, you need to populate the box with 2 other HDs.

OK, as I would like to recover the data I will try that and buy 2 new HDs. However I just got a reply from the Seagate support that if the drive passes the long generic test, it is 100% working and the unit I plugged it to must be defective...

I am a quite sure that the new drives will work OK, so that I have confirmed that the SC101 is 100% working.

On the other hand I have also my 2 confirmed 100% working HDs, so a fully working and even safely mirrored system with not to forget all new components as it was operative only for about 2 weeks and I got a new SC101 from Netgear...

The practical minor detail in that figure however is that almost all data stored on that theoretically fully intact and working system can't be accessed Please don't take this now as personal offence, I know that you are just trying to help and can't provide for miracles, I just wanted to point out that I think to be trapped in a vicious circle...

[MarcusX]

One more thing I forgot to ask, as I am not sure if I understood you correctly:
should I still put the "bad drive" into a PC and run the manufacturer tests there?

If so should I do anything else besides running those tests?