MD3820F erorr codes

Hello sergey_na,

If you login to MDSM and go to the recovery guru, does it list any errors?  Are you seeing the error listed on the controller from the rear of your MD3820f?

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Yes, after reboot the display shows the code S.E then 2.2

Yes, on the controller from the rear of array.

I can not connect to MDSM. No ping

Status (error) codes "5E 22" on the controller from the rear of array.

Hello sergey_na,

Can you not access MDSM from either controller, or are you only trying from controller 0?  Have you tried to reseat the controller that is giving the error?

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

SE - means "Startup Error"

22 - means bootloader phase. If controller stucks on this phase - it means that internal mSATA drive is broken.

Could you tell us what you ended up doing?

P.S. Internal mSATA drive is very cheap one and based on Toshiba 15nm MLC chips which are widely known as poor quality chips. Unfortunately Dell's OEM version of Netapp E2700 controller does not have second mSATA drives installed, so it can't survive after one drive is broken.

We recently encountered a similar problem and I would like to tell you about its solution.

1. As I said earlier - "SE" "22" means a failure in the initial boot phase. This could be either a damaged file structure or a fatal failure of the mSATA drive inside the controller.
2. First of all, you need to use the Mini USB to DB-9 console cable that came with your system. Just in case, its P/N: 0VPNP6.
3. Connect to the Mini USB port on the controller at 115200 8-N-1.
4. Remove and insert the controller.
5. In my case, errors occurred immediately after loading and looked something like this:
- = <###> = - Can't read from device 0
Unable to use usb 0:1 for fatload
6. Disassembly the controller and remove the mSATA drive. You can diagnose its by yourself. In our case, it completely died and we decided to use a new 128GB drive.
7. The easiest way to get a usable data image for the mSATA drive is to copy the data from any other controller.
8. Just in case, I will say that this drive stores the files from the current firmware. The drive is formatted in MBR, FAT filesystem. It has the following folder structure: \ fw \ active \ (files); \ fw \ old_fw \ (files). There is also a Config file that contains a backup copy of NVSRAM.
9. Download a copy of the data to the new mSATA drive and install into the controller.
10. Reconnect to the console and insert controller. If everything is done correctly, then after loading the RAID module you will see the following lines:

04/21/21-11:54:30 (tRAID): WARN: mSATA serial# mismatch, slot:0, expected: 53504731363431303044, actual: 393130303130335a3131, locking down controller
04/21/21-11:54:30 (tRAID): WARN: Suspending Ctlr: "Client_Non_Fru_Component_Replaced"

After that, the loading of the controller will stop and the display will show an error: 0E Lr
11. If your controller has not been put into service mode (and most likely not), then it's time to do it. Connect via MDSM to the production controller and put the failing controller in service mode.
12. After that, you can enter the service shell. To do this, press the following key combination in the console (Letter case is important):
Ctrl + Pause / Break
S
Ctrl + a
Ctrl + b
Esc
13. You should see a login prompt:

Press within 5 seconds: for Service Interface, for baud rate
login:

14. Login: shellUsr, password: DF4m/2>
15. Run the following command to delete the old value for the mSATA serial number:

hcvhClearSataFlashSerialNumber 0

16. You should see:

value = 1 = 0x1

17. Enter next command:

reboot

18. After that, the controller should boot up to phase: 05 (standby in service mode). You must re-login to MDSM and take the controller out of maintenance mode. After that, the controller should boot up to normal state (00).

We have the same problem. You can send a copy of your msata?

Hi Andrey_Ra,

Could you please advise on what type of adapter or what did you use to read the mSATA drive from inside the controller?

was it mSATA to USB or mSATA to SATA or what?

I was advised that these devices can have different pinout and voltage and this may be important.

We now have the similiar problem, but to replace the second (I believe cache only ) mSATA device.

Dear Andrey_Ra,

Thank you very very very much. I exactly followed your instruction, and you saved my unresponsive controller. Mine is a six-year-old system, and Dell service in my country refused fixing it, saying that no spare controller was available all around the world and that they can't fix it without a replacement controller.

Actually, I have another question. During the time I fixed it, I replaced the RTC battery too, thinking that I would give the controller a little more juice for staying normal for longer time. Shoot --- bad decision. The system hangs during bootup, complaining that RTC battery is low. I always have to press C(ontinue) on the console every time it reboots. Just out of curiosity, I opened up the other perfectly working controller and took out the RCT battery and then replugged it in in its place, and voila!, it also hangs during bootup with the same complaint. Maybe the RTC battery in an MD3820f controller should never be taken out. (If it was designed that way, Dell should have soldered it or put a warning or something!!!)

Do you (or does anyone) happen to know how this situation (Getting RTC battery low warning even though battery is OK) can be fixed?

Thank you very much all!

YM

There is another thread that is definitely related to this one, so I am adding a link to that thread here...

https://www.dell.com/community/PowerVault/MD3820F-error-code-5E-dF/td-p/8319119/page/2

@Andrey_Ra​ I was dealing with this issue recently and thank you for the good guidance. In my case I had to run the 'hcvhClearSataFlashSerialNumber' command twice though. I ran it once as 'hcvhClearSataFlashSerialNumber 0' and once as 'hcvhClearSataFlashSerialNumber 1' because I was still seeing a serial mismatch command after only running it with the '0'. Hopefully this helps anyone else looking here.

Now if I could only get it run in Simplex mode... sigh...