SoftRAID 3 Troubleshooting
SoftRAID 3 is designed as an easy to use, run in the background application. Occasionally you may come up with a situation where SoftRAID doesn't perform as you think it should. This section contains troubleshooting questions which you may encounter during your use of SoftRAID 3.
Troubleshooting Topics
If you have upgraded to Mac OS 10.4.10 and can't launch the SoftRAID 3 application:
Due to an unorthodox change in Apple's naming conventions in Mac OS X 10.4.10, the SoftRAID 3.6 application and earlier cannot recognize Mac
OS 10.4.10 as a valid version number. This does not affect the integrity of your existing SoftRAID volumes. This has been changed in SoftRAID 3.6.3 and up. If you are a registered user but have not received 3.6.2, please contact
us at support@softraid.com. We apologize for any inconvenience.
If you experience a hang or "kernel panic":
There are two types of hangs in OS X - an application hang and a "kernel panic". An application
hang is indicated with the endlessly spinning beach ball. Try clicking on the desktop background, and
then hit the key combination "command-option-escape". This is a feature of Mac OS X which
allows you to force quit an application. If the SoftRAID application hangs, it could be because a disk
reached a state where it is not responding to the system.
A "kernel panic" is where the computer stops running, and a sign appears in 5 languages saying you need to restart your computer. Your only option is to hit the reset button. When your machine restarts (it may take a little longer, as Mac OS X checks all the directory structures after a panic) then you can run SoftRAID and make sure all your volumes are OK. You may want to run a disk utility like Disk First Aid (available inside Apple's Disk Utility Application in the Application/Utility folder), or a third party product, such as Disk Warrior 3 or TechTools Pro.
If either of these situations happens repeatedly and you can reproduce the hang or kernel panic please contact support@softraid.com so we can investigate further.
If you experience the SoftRAID tiles not changing correctly:
Try quitting SoftRAID, and relaunching it. If this does not correct the problem, you can log out and log in from the Apple menu, or restart. If a problem still occurs, you can send an e-mail to support@softraid.com.
If you see the message, "SoftRAID encountered an error when trying to create a file system, no file system was placed on the volume":
Delete the volume, and try again.
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If your Mirror volumes frequently become out-of-sync:
An out-of-sync state occurs to a Mirror volume if A) your machine crashes, or B) when one or more disks belonging to a Mirror volume is unavailable at startup, or when you tried to write to the volume.
If you are not crashing, and not moving disks and the out-of sync state is happening, check to see if there are I/O errors on any of the disks. This can mean a disk is failing and needs to be replaced. Otherwise, it is possible there is a defective/loose cable, or the power to your system is very poor, causing the disks to lose contact with the computer for brief moments.
If you start a rebuild and don't want to continue:
SoftRAID allows you to stop a rebuild at any time. Just click on the volume tile, and use the Cancel command from the Utility menu or the key combination "command-period".
If your progress thermometer stops working:
Try quitting and restarting SoftRAID, or restarting the machine. If this continues, contact support@softraid.com.
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If you get a stop sign on a volume:
A stop sign icon only occurs when there is a data loss scenario. If you have a Stripe volume, this means a disk is missing or failed. If the disk is missing, you can shut down the machine, plug in the disk and restart. If the disk has failed, you have lost your data.
If you have a failed Mirror volume, it means that either all of the disks have failed or the unfailed disks are unavailable. A failed Mirror volume indicates that all the disks malfunctioned and this is most likely caused by a faulty cable or a faulty card which all the disks are connected to. If the volume still mounts, back it up immediately onto a reliable disk on a different bus. If the volume doesn't mount, you may be able to use a disk utility such as DiskWarrior 3 or TechTools Pro to recover some of your data.
If you can't see all your disks in the New Volume dialog box:
If you are using the New Volume dialog box and a disk is not appearing that you would expect to appear, check that the disk is initialized with the SoftRAID application and that it
has free space.
If a disk is on, but its volumes are not appearing on the desktop:
Run the SoftRAID application and see if the disk appears in the Disk column. If you uncertain which
disk is which, select a disk, and use the Blink Disk Light command to help you see if it is the correct disk.
If the disk is on but not showing up, check the cables and restart the Mac.
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If a disk shows up in the disk column but its volumes don't appear:
The disk partition map may be damaged. Contact support@softraid.com to ask us if we can help.
If you get a message saying "you have inserted a disk that has no volumes that Mac OS X can recognize":
This is a problem with the way Mac OS was designed to handle disk events, and doesn't mean that your drive has failed.
Just click on the Ignore button. If you are concerned, run SoftRAID, and verify that all is OK.
If SoftRAID doesn't run when launched for the first time:
You may have unformatted disks that SoftRAID doesn't recognize properly. If you have a third party card that the
disks are connected to, try to launch Disk Utility, and create a volume on each drive with it. If you can, then
quit Disk Utility and launch SoftRAID 3. The disks should now be available.
If you created a UFS volume, and can't write to it:
Restart the machine, or "get info" on the volume and this fixes the problem.
If you try to add an identical sized disk to a previously converted Mirror volume and SoftRAID says the disk is not big enough:
A SoftRAID initialized disk has slightly less free space than an Apple initialized disk. So when you try to add the spare disk to a Mirror, SoftRAID doesn't have enough space on the drive to convert it. The best solution is to Create a volume on the SoftRAID initialized disk, and move all your data over to it. Then delete the original volume, and use SoftRAID's Convert to Mirror command, which will now work.
If you inadvertently start up a secondary disk without its primary disk:
When SoftRAID mounts a Mirror volume it always looks for the Primary disk. If SoftRAID does not find the Primary because it has been disconnected, or not started up, SoftRAID will convert one of the secondary disks to be the Primary disk for that volume. The volume tile will display the "missing secondary disk" state. If the primary disk of a volume is missing, either at startup or during use, The volume will then read and write data as normal with one less disk. The "missing secondary state can be cleared with the "remove missing secondary disk" command in the Volume window
If the original Primary disk is then reattached to the system, SoftRAID will recognize it as a separate volume with the same name, but the state will be listed as "no secondary disk". This volume cannot be added back to the original volume in this form because they have been permanently separated.
If you want this to be the Primary because the data on it is more current, and you want to add the other disks back, you will have to delete the data on those disks in the new volume using the Delete command under the Volume menu and then add back the disks to that initial Primary using the Add Secondary Disk command under the Volumes menu.
If the data on the newly converted volume is more current and you wish to add the old Primary back as a secondary you can use the Delete command under the Volume menu and the Add Secondary disk after selecting the newly converted volume in the Volumes column of the Application window.
If you upgraded Mac OS X to 10.2.8 or 10.3 and can't see your SCSI Drives:
Not all SCSI cards are compatible with Mac OS X. Some cards are not
compatible with OS X at all, some only compatible with 10.1, 10.2, or
require updates to work with 10.2.8 or 10.3. If you use SCSI drives with Mac OS X, always be alert to firmware updates for the card you use, especially before upgrading your operating system.
These legacy Adaptec cards do not work with Mac OS X 10.2.8
- AHA-2906,
- AHA-2930CU Mac BIOS v4.2,
- AHA-2940U2B ULTRA2 LVD/SE 68 pin external, 68 pin internal, Ribbon cable included
- AHA-2340UWPI
- ULTRA2 SE 68 pin external, 68 pin internal and 50 pin internal. This legacy Adaptec card requires a firmware upgrade to work with 10.2.8 and above
- AHA-39160 Firmware v.1.1
If you are having a problem creating a SoftRAID Startup volume on an Intel Mac:
Due to some Apple Bugs and a SoftRAID 3.6 bug, the creation of SoftRAID startup volumes for Intel requires
a few additional steps than for PowerPC machines. Please proceed to our Intel Startup Document for detailed instructions.
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