715N NAS and Dell Open Manage Array Manager

Question

Hey everyone,

I managed to mess up my 715N by doing the following. I decided to update the Dell Open Manage Array Manager software to version 3.4.0 A00 available for download. The readme file said to uninstall the old version first. I went into Add/Remove Programs and removed the old version. It said it wanted to reboot and I said Yes. After the reboot it never came back. The console works on reboot and I can test the disks but it looks like it starts loading (drives flash) but never completes the boot.

The Dell Tech Support guy had me switch the hard drives which didn't work and then we did the 2 - Recovery option in the console. Thus, it booted from the spare partition. Whew! I tried clicking on the Array Manager snap-in and it says the Array Manager has been removed or moved. That's when the Support guy said it needed an OS reinstall. Now I have the reinstall disks being overnighted to me and will do the reinstall when they arrive.

Sooo.... my question is: what happened? Am I updating the Array Manager software wrong? What caused the problem? Why did it tell me to reboot before I could install the new version? Is the Array Manager needed for the system to boot?

Any insight would be helpful so that I don't screw it up again.

Thanks!

Steve

Dev Mgr · Answer

I've seen this more than once. Array manager is really only used for hardware raid controllers, which the PV715N doesn't have (the hardware raid option for the low end Powervault NAS range wasn't introduced till later models of the PV725N). For this reason there is no reason to worry about upgrading array manager (newer firmwares on PERCs may require newer versions of array manager).

As the OS is part of a software mirror and the array manager under Windows 2000 replaces disk management, uninstalling array manager may take a few clicks here and there after the reboot. However, the PV715 doesn't have a mouse and monitor hook-up to check that. It has 1 PCI slot that could hold a VGA card, or a USB card (for USB keyboard/mouse), but not both. So you could try a VGA card and see what the screen tells you is happening, but you cannot do anything about it (maybe an old serial mouse may help you click on something, but you wouldn't be able to type in anything), or you could put in a USB card, but then you wouldn't be able to see what you're doing.

This is one of the best things Dell did for the PV725N, give it a keyb/mouse/mon hookups.

A Linux box is still quite manageable with only a network connection, but Windows requires local keyboard/mouse/monitor just a little too often to completely remove it in my opinion.

stevefichtner · Answer

@Dev Mgr wrote:
I've seen this more than once. Array manager is really only used for hardware raid controllers, which the PV715N doesn't have (the hardware raid option for the low end Powervault NAS range wasn't introduced till later models of the PV725N). For this reason there is no reason to worry about upgrading array manager (newer firmwares on PERCs may require newer versions of array manager).

Wow... I never thought about that. Silly me for trying to search for 715N downloads. BTW, the reinstall worked okay (I dedicated a Win2k laptop to it) and everything is setup by default just like from the Dell factory. I've applied all the Windows updates and I updated the BIOS from A04 to A06. I'm getting ready to join it to our domain.

What is the best way to monitor the disks for errors? What logging do I need to turn on? The Array Manager has some logs but it's just default ones from the reinstall.

Thanks for all the info.

Steve

PowerVault

715N NAS and Dell Open Manage Array Manager

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