RD1000 Problems and Errors

Question

We have an RD1000 installed internally on a Dell PowerEdge T110-II server.  The server OS is Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials.  The RD1000 has worked well from several years.  Recently, though, something has gone wrong. The RD1000 device shows up in Computer on the server, along with the other server drives.  However, the associated disk cartridge does not show up (and we have tried several different cartridges, all of which worked previously).  When I run the Dell RD1000 diagnostics, both the drive and cartridge show up.  The drive values look fine.  The cartridge, however, in spite of reporting a 'good' condition shows zero bytes used and zero bytes available.  The RD1000 passes the first two tests provided by the Dell utility program (self-test and lights).  However, the read/write test fails with the message 'FAILED - error opening test file.  Parameter is incorrect.'  Again, we ran the tests multiple times with multiple disk cartridges, and the results are always the same. In the Windows Server disk management console, the RD1000 again shows up (Disk 0, the 'R' drive).  However, the terabyte cartridge shows as 931.51 GB RAW DATA (as though the cartridge, which has been used multiple times, is not formatted).  In addition, Disk Management seems to hang and takes some time to exit from (although it eventually does).  Sometimes the RD1000 drive flashes multiple times and eventually vanishes from the list. We are also experiencing other related problems.  After a period of time, the VDS.EXE service consumes 100 percent of the server CPU, and the server has to be reset to clear the memory usage.  The virtual disk service (VDS) then returns to its normal CPU level, but begins to build again until it consumes all of the server memory (32 gigabytes). In the meantime, there are other errors showing up in two different Windows Event logs.  The first one is multiple occurrences in the Application log of Event ID 0, 'source RDXMon cannot be found.  Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted.' In the System log are literally hundreds of Event 55 NTFS error messages stating that 'the file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable.  Please run the CHKDSK utility on the volume R' (which is the RD1000).  All of the other disks in the server are working correctly and do not generate any error messages.  It does not seem to matter which disk cartridge is in the RD1000, these errors always happen. The final symptom of this problem is that the Windows storage service log files grow to enormous size (>15 GB each) and quickly consume all open space on the Windows system partition (drive C).  I have had to go into \ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\logs and manually delete these files every day to preserve adequate room on the system partition. I have downloaded what I think is the latest RD1000 file set from Dell's web site.  One idea to try would be to fully remove the RD1000 installation and redo it again from scratch.  Removing the RD1000 utility programs would be simple (the usual Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel).  I'm not sure how to remove/reinstall the RD1000 hardware device in Windows, though (to turn the clock back to when we first got the Dell server with the RD1000 already installed).  Perhaps removing and reinstalling the software would be sufficient. l would greatly appreciate any help that anyone can offer.  This problem is quickly becoming critical.  Thanks.

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello JRN92,

What I would do is if you are not running the latest firmware on your RD1000 then I would upgrade that first. Here is the link to the firmware just in case you need it. http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=4TWT7&fileId=3463898128&osCode=LHS64&productCode=powervault-rd1000&languageCode=en&categoryId=TH

After the firmware has been upgraded then what I would do is to reinstall the RD utility and test the RD1000 cartridges again. If they are still failing to be seen then the issue is with the drive bay & it will need to be replaced.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

PowerVault

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