RAID Troubleshooting
Despite the common reaction to its name, this error does not always require replacement of a hard drive.
What is a failed hard drive?
These are the three phases, in order, that a server goes through when it starts.
What is Power, POST, and Boot?
This is used to separate the host vs network portion of your IP address.
What is subnet mask?
This should be done at the start of a memory error case, and again after making any changes.
What is pull a Support Assist Collection / TSR?
This Windows Feature must be selected during installation to use a GUI in modern versions of Windows Server.
What is Desktop Experience?
This sense key category indicates bad blocks.
What is sense key 03?
What is POST?
This command line tool can be used to test connectivity to a network resource.
What is ping?
These updates may resolve memory errors.
What is BIOS and iDRAC firmware?
This feature allows you to install an OS when you (and the installation media) are remote to the server.
What is iDRAC virtual media + virtual console?
This sense key category typically indicates a physical hardware failure.
What is sense key 04?
This embedded tool makes troubleshooting startup issues much easier.
What is the iDRAC?
This maps IP addresses to friendly names.
What is DNS?
This feature introduced in 14G drastically changed memory troubleshooting.
What is self-healing / PPR (post package repair)?
This OS installation method is recommended to make sure you install with all the needed drivers supplied.
What is the OS installation wizard in the LCC?
When your RAID metadata is mismatched, you will likely see this.
What is a foreign configuration?
A server stuck on a black screen with a blinking white cursor is likely stuck in this phase.
What is the boot phase?
If you're not sure if the problem is outside your network, this is a good resource to test connection to.
What is the default gateway?
This hardware could cause a memory error. (List all)
What is the memory, the motherboard, or the CPU?
This is a very popular hypervisor with a small installation footprint.
What is VMware ESXi?
You must follow this series of steps to recover after a Punctured Stripe.
What is: take a file level backup, delete the RAID, replace any predictive failed / hardware failed drives, recreate the RAID, run a full initialization, and restore your file level backup?
This bootable media can be used to validate hardware when the OS is suspect or unavailable.
What is SLI (Support Live Image)?
This allows multiple physical NICs to work together for failover or load balancing.
What is NIC teaming?
This type of memory error will cause a system crash.
What is an uncorrected multi-bit error (MBE)?
This OS family comes in many different flavors which can drastically change the features and experience of the OS.
What is Linux?