SAS drive reports "Device not ready"

[willh]

Hi everyone,

I have recently bought a HBA card (an LSI 9211-8i flashed to IT mode) and two SAS hard drives - 2x8TB Seagate enterprise hard drives, and I have connected them to my Linux server with a mini-SAS to SAS with SATA power cable.


However, on trying to mount them, they both seem unresponsive. Specifically, they respond to every command I have tried with some variant of "Device not ready". They also do not appear in GParted or fdisk, but they do appear in the filesystem as /dev/sda, /dev/sg0 and /dev/sdb, /dev/sg1.


I am told by the seller that these drives pass SMART tests, and they had them in JBOD. One of the screenshots they sent says "Formatted with type 2 protection, 8 bytes of protection information per logical block", so I believe they may have 520B block size?


I have tried removing the 3v3 wire from my SATA power (for the pin 3 power off behaviour), formatting the disk using sg_format or sg_sanitize, and decrypting it with sedutil.


However, the removal of 3v3 seemed not to change anything, and all sg commands seem to fail with the error "Not Ready" or "Sense Key: Not Ready". I have also tried power cycling them multiple times as the error suggests by fully unplugging them for hours but the errors persist. Decryption with sedutil was unsuccessful too as it reports that the disk is "invalid or unsupported", even though some of my research seemed to indicate that the "PROTECT=1" part of the sg_format output means encryption.


I have also tried to narrow down the issue, and using a mini-SAS to SATA cable I tested an old SATA hard drive and it worked as expected, so I believe the controller is ok and I have some sort of issue on the configuration of the SAS drives?


I've attached some logs below of things which I have tried which seem to have worked for other people with similar issues.


I'd be very grateful for any help or advice anyone here can offer! I can provide any other diagnostic information which might be useful.

will@ubuntuserver:~$ sudo sg_turs /dev/sg0

device not ready

Completed 1 Test Unit Ready commands with 1 errors

will@ubuntuserver:~$ sudo sg_readcap -vvv /dev/sg0

open /dev/sg0 with flags=0x800

    read capacity(10) cdb: [25 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00]

      duration=0 ms

read capacity(10):

Descriptor format, current; Sense key: Not Ready

Additional sense: Logical unit not ready, power cycle required

  Descriptor type: Field replaceable unit code: 0x1

  Descriptor type: Vendor specific [0x80]

    00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

 Raw sense data (in hex), sb_len=28, embedded_len=28

        72 02 04 22 00 00 00 14  03 02 00 01 80 0e 00 00

        00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00

    read capacity(10): pass-through requested 8 bytes (data-in), got  got 0 bytes

READ CAPACITY (10) failed: Device not ready, type: sense key

will@ubuntuserver:~$ sudo sg_format --format --size=512 --pfu=0 --six --fmtpinfo=0 -v /dev/sg0

    SEAGATE   ST8000NM0075      E003   peripheral_type: disk [0x0]

      PROTECT=1

      << supports protection information>>

      Unit serial number: ZA10GP9X0000R621KNTU

      LU name: 5000c50084c2544f

    mode sense(6) cdb: [1a 00 01 00 fc 00]

mode sense(6):

Descriptor format, current; Sense key: Not Ready

Additional sense: Logical unit not ready, power cycle required

  Descriptor type: Field replaceable unit code: 0x1

  Descriptor type: Vendor specific [0x80]

    00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

MODE SENSE (6) command: Device not ready, type: sense key

will@ubuntuserver:~$ sudo sg_format --format --size=512 --pfu=0 --fmtpinfo=0 -v /dev/sg0

    SEAGATE   ST8000NM0075      E003   peripheral_type: disk [0x0]

      PROTECT=1

      << supports protection information>>

      Unit serial number: ZA10GP9X0000R621KNTU

      LU name: 5000c50084c2544f

    mode sense(10) cdb: [5a 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 fc 00]

mode sense(10):

Descriptor format, current; Sense key: Not Ready

Additional sense: Logical unit not ready, power cycle required

  Descriptor type: Field replaceable unit code: 0x1

  Descriptor type: Vendor specific [0x80]

    00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

MODE SENSE (10) command: Device not ready, type: sense key

 

[EasyRhino]

The protect is probably data protection (520 byte) not encryption. probably.

If the label has a tiny PSID serial number then it's a SED drive. If not, it probably isn't.

Normally I would guess 3.3v power problem.

maybe try one pass of sg_format changing as little as possible. See if that will reformat.

Then try a second pass changing only the sector size to 512, not messing with pfu or fmtpinfo fields.

 

[TrevorH]

Do you hear the drives spin up? Or feel them spinning via vibration if you touch them?

 

[willh]

The protect is probably data protection (520 byte) not encryption. probably.

If the label has a tiny PSID serial number then it's a SED drive. If not, it probably isn't.

Normally I would guess 3.3v power problem.

maybe try one pass of sg_format changing as little as possible. See if that will reformat.

Then try a second pass changing only the sector size to 512, not messing with pfu or fmtpinfo fields.

Thanks for the reply! I've checked and it does have a PSID number, but I can't understand why sedutil wouldnt recognise the drive?

I'll have a go with sg_format like you said, and another look at sedutil.

 

[willh]

Do you hear the drives spin up? Or feel them spinning via vibration if you touch them?

Yes when i turn the computer on it starts spinning.

 

[willh]

I've tried sedutil again, but it still says device not supported, and I've tried sg_format with minimal options but it still has the same issues as before. Interestingly the drive still feels like it is spinning even though it claims to be not ready.

I think I might just have to return these drives unfortunately

 

[itronin]

Not saying it is your issue. I've seen the behavior on drives formerly used in Dell (not EMC) arrays and with PERC's raid controllers. Usually takes a Perc H710 I think and an older version of firmware to unlock the drives then you are good to go. Whether it would work on an H730 (sas3) I cannot say. I had an H710 hanging around in my parts bin for this purpose but with my move and boxes yet to explore no idea where it is.

the behavior is there to keep you from trashing an array drive (whether it was your array or someone else's does not matter).

there's an older thread about this somewhere on here.

all the other points are also valid, 520+ block sizes, type II or II protection (which is usually 528 block), SED etc.

 

[EasyRhino]

Yeah good hypothesis. I had some old, bricked, Toshiba PX02 SSD's and they weren't recognized at all on a HP H240 adapter, but they were recognized by a LSI 9400 (and I could then run the sg_format commands to fix them)

 

[TrevorH]

I've never used a 9211 in IT mode but can you access its BIOS via Ctrl-C/Ctrl-R at boot time and does that BIOS then have any options to reformat the disks etc?