Snap 2200 - Can I Fix It or Is It The END?

[melb]

Hi,

I've had a Snap 2200 for about six years and it's been excellent.

However, one drive failed, and now I cant get the 2200 to work at all - 1 system and 2 disk flashes, which having read these forums, I understand means the one "good disk" is giving problems also! I did do a SMART and read test outside the 2200 and the "good disk" looked fine! Assist cannot find the 2200. So, I understand, I need a 2200 disk image file to repair this disk.

All data is backed up OK, and as the unit has not really been used a lot, I'd like to keep it for a couple more years.

So, please, can anyone help?

Thanks

Mel B

[blue68f100]

1 drive failure in Raid 1? Move the good HD to the Drive 1 position (0), make sure it is set as master. Do not connect the bad HD. If it does not boot off of that header move it to the other.

Now if you were in Raid 0, you will need the image file to recover.

Now if the bad drive spins up, you may have just lost the HD controller card. I have swapped HD controllers may time to recover data from failed HD's.

You should not Assist unless you reset the unit to factory defaults.

[melb]

Hi,

Thanks for the tips - I tried moving the "good drive" to the other connector and same problem. So, it doesn't boot on both connectors.

I didn't mention that I did do a system reset during an earlier attempt - I'm making no attempt to save data, just to get the 2200 back to its factory state!

Currently, I'm sure that my PC is trying to connect to the 2200 correctly, but, of course, no joy, because the 2200 is not booting.

So, I've read, and only read, the "good drive" perfectly OK in a PC with HD Tune Pro, therefore there must be some other "format" corruption on the drive. Why, oh why, did they put the OS onto a drive, and not in ROM?

The only solution I can see is to reinitialize fully the drive!

Mel

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by melb

So, I've read, and only read, the "good drive" perfectly OK in a PC with HD Tune Pro

Isn't that a Windows program?

[melb]

Yes, HD Tune Pro is a Windows application.

Didn't make it clear. I removed the two drives temporarily from the 2200, and installed them in a PC running XP. HD Tune Pro allows you to read all sectors, during which it will reassign any bad sectors if need be. HD Tune Pro also shows you the SMART data.

HD Tune Pro showed that my "Bad Disk" had nearly 200 bad sectors - so this drive is definitely for the bin.

My "Good Disk" had no bad sectors before the read check, and had no bad sectors after the read check. So, I assume, this check did not alter anything on the drive at all. Obviously, I didn't do a read/write test, which would have destroyed everything.

I've had a further thought on reinitializing the disk. Do you know if the Disk Image on a Snap Server 4100 is the same as the Disk Image on a Snap Server 2200? Both run, or did run, the same 3.XXX version of the OS. I have access to a 4100 and could copy a disk image across.

Mel

[blue68f100]

If you did a system reset you must use assist to locate the unit. Preferably the v4 one. If I recall the older v3 does not identify v4 os.

The only other Snap that had OS on HD was the 1100. The 4100 has it in ROM.

MS does not follow the rules when you install a non MS System HD in MS based system. The only ones that are safe is Unix/Lynix Systems. So I'm guessing it altered the good HD. If you used the mfg disk utility you could have looked at smart data but that would be it. They to do not recognize the snap file structure, either. Now if you booted off of a CD version of HD you may have got away with it.

The snap uses a highly modified XFS file system. Highly modified. The only programs that work are ones that use bios direct access calls to read sectors.

You will probably need to reload a image from file. V3.805+ supports large disk. V4.806 is recommended.

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by blue68f100

The snap uses a highly modified XFS file system. Highly modified. The only programs that work are ones that use bios direct access calls to read sectors.

Yup, which is why I mentioned it. I am guessing he blew his XFS on the good drive when it went into the MS system.

Image time...

[blue68f100]

That would be a safe bet...

[melb]

Hi guys,

Agree with the conclusion - File system is corrupted. But, I'm not so sure about how it was corrupted.

So, it looks as if getting a fix is another problem - Overland don't release image files, and the img/bin file is not on any download sites that I can find!

Therefor, it's Plan B - I've decided to go for a longer term solution using open source, and widely available hardware and software - Overland Inc, Snap Servers and proprietary disk formats are not for me anymore.

The best solution, at the moment, is to make one of my Ubuntu/Linux servers a dedicated file/database server. I'm thinking of using the TURNKEY "File Server Appliance" distro, with a RAID 5 + 1 disk array; which ups the storage capacity; hopefully adds to the reliability; as well as removing any proprietary hardware/software issues. This should do the job.

I'll do the same also with my 4100 at its first glitch.

Thanks to both of you for the advice, appreciate it, even if it confirms the worst.

Regards

Mel B

[blue68f100]

You may try a copy of Spinrite on the HD. It works at the controller level and has been able to repair disk in the past. No Guarantee that it will work.

If person would read the FAQ's I put together who know how long ago it would save a lot of grief. I even put the warning in Red.

Snap OS hard drives can not be read by anything except another snap. If you install the HD in a pc you will damage the drive if you mount it, kiss your data good bye. And then it needs to be the same SnapOS if a flash ram unit. 1000, 2000, 4x00.

[melb]

Well, Well, Well! All is back to normal. I eventually found the Snap 2200 disk image file, and after following the instructions, the 2200 read one disk. Then the 2200 did an automatic formatting repair for the second disk, after which the Raid 1 could be recreated.

Moral of the story is "Do not use any Snap disk in another system", unless it is to, of course, rescue yourself from using a Snap Disk in another system!

Thanks to the guys who helped on this one.

Best wishes

Mel


Just an afterthought - Can we get the wiki back online? - There's still SnapServer life out there!

[blue68f100]

Glad to hear you have everything backup and running.

Where Joe has his hosting service at does not support the wiki editor. But these SnapOS units are close to 15yrs past EOL. They don't support the newer OS's. The Guardian OS units are a much more robust system and has speed to match modern systems.