# RAID 5 degraded with Folder and ? icon at boot on Power Mac



## nathankaa (Nov 11, 2014)

Hi,
I have an issue with a Power Mac set up with RAID 5 with 4 500GB drives with OSX Server 10.5

The server boots and we receive the flashing Folder and ? icon. I boot into the OSX install disk and open the raid utility and it says that the RAID set is degraded. One of the disks says it is roaming, so I replaced it, the new disk now says the it is a JBOD. I tried using Terminal to adopt the disk but I get the message that the RAID controller is busy and cannot accept requests. Under status it says the RAID is suspended. It also looks like an initialization has started but has not completed (in fact it says 0%).So now for the questions:

- Does this sound like a RAID controller issue?
- Is it possible to restart/reset the RAID controller without losing the current RAID set and data to enable disk adoption?
- If I replace the RAID controller, will I loose the current RAID set and data?

Thanks


----------



## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

You would boot off of the OS XServe install Disc and open the RAID utility. Select the new drive and choose* RAID > Make Spare* http://images.apple.com/xserve/pdf/RAID_Utility_User_Guide.pdf


----------



## nathankaa (Nov 11, 2014)

Thanks for that, I've managed to get the RAID in a viable position, however the Power Mac is still not seeing the system files at startup and the Folder/? icon is flashing. When I boot into the OSX server disk and go to the Utilities menu I can see the RAID details using the RAID Utility, however when I open the Disk Utility the RAID Volume/Disks/Set do not show up. Is there any other way to fix system files or access the RAID set so I can pull files off it?

NB: I've tried Target Disk Mode, the Power Mac will boot into that mode but no drives appear on my Macbook Pro. I tried booting into Safe mode by holding the Shift key but it just goes to the flashing Folder/? icon.


----------



## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

> http://images.apple.com/xserve/pdf/R...User_Guide.pdf


did you read all instructions to the link in the PDF in the Quote above about the RAID utility? Especially page 17 about *JBOD *disks that need to be opened in *Disk Utility *before they can be added to the array?


----------



## nathankaa (Nov 11, 2014)

Yep, saw that. The install of the new drive went fine, the drive was made a spare and then the RAID re-initialized itself, it now shows that it is viable, all lights are green.

However this RAID volume is not accessible, for example:

- I boot into the OSX Server DVD to initiate an install (which is where I have been doing all the work in the RAID Utility)
- If I continue through the process to hopefully install the system to fix system files, the RAID volume is not available (in fact there are no options to install onto)

So again I guess I'm drawn back to the questions about the RAID controller above.


----------



## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

You may have to delete your array, and rebuild it, where you may loose data: Rebuilding Arrays on Xserve RAIDs | krypted.com


----------

