VRTX Blocked Drives Firmware Update

Hello,

Would you be able to get the part numbers of the blocked drives in the VRTX? The reason that I ask is that even though they are Dell branded drives, they might not be compatible with the SPERC. That's the more common issue that I find being the cause of these symptoms. The drives you have might be perfectly fine, but this is a common enough issue that it would make for a good place to get started. 

As for the firmware, you might try rolling the update back, then updating the drives first. Depending on the drives, they might still be blocked, but I think that's probably your best shot. 

How do I roll back the firmware on the controller? There seems to be no way to do this and I cannot find any articles that state how.

I read and saw that same piece. Now I'm trying to figure out how to get to the CLI of a PERC on a VRTX. 

OK. I was able to rollback the PERC but the drives are still blocked. These are all Dell drives that came with the system originally so I know they are Dell certified. They were all working before the PERC update. Is there any way to force the system to unblock a drive temporarily to update it or even force an update on a blocked drive?

Not that I'm aware of, but that doesn't mean the option doesn't exist. I figure the best shot at being able to do so is going to be through PERC CLI. I'll review the PERC manual and see if I can find anything. This is the manual I'm referencing.

https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/dell-sas-hba-12gbps_reference-guide_en-us.pdf

EDIT: Findings actually came a lot faster than I what I expected. Can you give this a shot and see what happens?
perccli /c0/v0 set accesspolicy=RmvBlkd (c0 and v0 are examples. This would depend on how your hardware is enumerating)

I found it on page 41.

So, I'm in the RACADM CLI in an attempt to this type of action, but it seems Shared PERC options are more limited. I cannot run that command on a Shared PERC through the RACADM. The best I could get was the following command:

$ racadm raid forceonline:Disk.Bay.2:Enclosure.Internal.0-0:RAID.ChassisIntegrated.1-1

STOR013 : One or more Storage device(s) are not in a state where the operation can be completed. : Disk.Bay.2:Enclosure.Internal.0-0:RAID.ChassisIntegrated.1-1

This is getting ridiculous. Drives should not be blocked from doing firmware. Ever.

Hi Mkimler,

Have had the exact same thing happen here, we have a bunch of ST300MM0006 in a Dell VRTX, all dell branded and certified, running Firmware LS08.

For some reason the other day just 1 of these drives was marked as blocked and now I cant interact with it in the CMC. Very frustrating as as far as I can see there is no issue with the drive. There is a a LS0A firmware for this model which *may* fix this but as I cannot interact with the drive I will never know and cannot update the firmware.

Poor effort DELL, 0 Stars

P.S totally agree with your point on allowing firmware upgrades on blocked drives. As far as I can see there is no way to "Reset" the drives status. If a glitch or controller FW update causes a drive to be blocked, no way to recover. Truly bizarre choice on Dells behalf.

Hi Everyone,

I too am having this issue with half of my drives coming up as blocked after firmware updating them and then rebooting the CMC.  The odd part here is this -- I have some drives that have stayed online that are of the same make/model/firmware so that makes it a bit puzzling for me as to why some get blocked while others do not.  

Everything else on my system firmware wise is up to date. 

I attempted to use the command:    racadm raid forceonline:Disk.Bay.2:Enclosure.Internal.0-0:RAID.ChassisIntegrated.1-1

Which yields same results as Mkimler - One or more Storage device(s) are not in a state where the operation can be completed.

Loosing half the disks caused the Virtual Disks to fail, but with a little trail and error I was able to get the virtual disks back online by removing ALL drives, clearing the failed virtual disks, then re-inserting the physical drives all while the CMC was powered on, but all the blades OFF.  In my case a foreign virtual disk was then found which I imported and it came back. 

We decided to reboot the CMC and same problem with same disks comes back. 

There has to be a command or way to tell that PERC to unblock those drives permanently, but I can't seem to find it in the documentation.  Can anyone from Dell look into this and let us know?

Thanks,
Erik

Hello Erik,

I am sorry you faced with this issue. I would like to ask you to provide some additional information, which could help me to troubleshoot the issue.

-Are these drives Dell certified? If possible, please write Dell Part Number

How to find Dell Part Number:

https://dell.to/3ocaAGg

-Could you please share what version of firmware update was installed?

-What version of firmware does PERC have?

Thanks

Hello Maria,

Thanks for the response. All drives are Dell certified and most are original that shipped with system. The Drives with issues are:

1. Physical Disk 0:0:0 - Part #MY0202V7125553C1008FA02 - Model #WD4001FYYG
   1. Firmware Update Applied - D1R7
2. Physical Disk 0:0:2 - Part #CN0529FG7262261I01RXA04 - Model #ST4000NM0023
   1. Firmware Update Applied - GS15
3. Physical Disk 0:0:3 - Part #MY0202V7125553C50026A02 - Model #WD4001FYYG
   1. Firmware Update Applied - D1R7
4. Physical Disk 0:0:5 - Part #MY0202V7125553BT009BA02 - Model #WD4001FYYG
   1. Firmware Update Applied - D1R7
5. Physical Disk 0:0:7 - Part #MY0202V7125553CC0034A02 - Model #WD4001FYYG
   1. Firmware Update Applied - D1R7
6. Physical Disk 0:0:9 - Part #MY0202V7125553BR00FEA02 - Model #WD4001FYYG
   1. Firmware Update Applied - D1R7

PERC Firmware was not updated and is running 23.14.06.0013

What else do you need to help?

Thanks,

Erik

Hello Erik,

Thank you for your reply. I've checked drives - all are compatible with system, PERC v. 23.14.06.0013 is the latest.

In regards to the issue, I found only this article:

https://dell.to/3gfvMXo

Issue:

One or more physical disks are displayed as Blocked and cannot be configured.

Corrective Action:

Ensure that the physical disk is supported by SCSI-3 Persistent Reservation (PR). Update the physical disk and Shared PERC 8 to the latest firmware available on https://dell.to/3rk9Zny.

However in this particular situation, latest firmware are already installed.

I would like also to check logs from VRTX, could you please gather them and send me to the Private Message?

How to gather logs:

https://dell.to/3HnCyX8

Does VRTX have an active warranty?

Please, let me know if you have any questions.

Hi Maria,

PM Sent with Logs and no warranty on system. 

Thanks.

Hello Erik,

Thank you for log, I've checked them, unfortunately I couldn't isolate an issue, based on CMC log. Could you please additonally gather logs from PERC (one or both, depending on configuration) and send me them in Private Message?

How to collect the logs from a VRTX Shared PERC:

https://dell.to/3riZLnI

Thanks.

HI Maria,

Logs have been sent. 

Thanks,

Erik