So currently the light on one of the disks is red, indicating it has failed, and I am unable to access data on any of the drives. However, when the drive is replaced, the system will not boot. Any suggestions?
hi bairdj, can i check if that red light was a solid red light, or if it was blinking?
if there is any more information you can post when you get chance, such as which other drives you have (and sizing) and what those lights show (or were showing) that would be great.
Of course. There are eight, 2TB disks in. The fourth one is blinking red, all the rest are solid green.
thanks for the info bairdj,
a few more questions come to mind if i may 
- do you know if the 4th drive (which originally failed and was blinking) was a 2TB drive, and if the one that you replaced it with is also a similar 2TB drive, or was is larger newer one?
(usually it should not matter, but am just thinking in case it was special in some way, possibly being too large or new for the current firmware or something similar, though please do not try to update any firmware just yet)
- were the 2 drives, hot-swapped? for example was your drobopro connected and running at the time of the removal of the red blinking drive (assuming marked faulty), and also when the replacement (good) drive was put into its place?
(hot-swapping is the usual process)
3a) if the replacement is currently inside the drobo and if they were hotswapped above, can you remember if the drobo or dashboard was able to recognise that the original faulty drive was removed
&
3b) can you remember what happened when the replacement drive was put in… for example did the drobo or dashboard recognise the new drive, and did something else happen?
-
when the original faulty drive was blinking red (were you still able to access your data), or did data access only stop upon a reboot of the drobo?
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just to help me clarify, can i check when you mention the system doesnot boot (it is the drobopro you mean, and not the computer which is also connected?)
(it seems that the drive replacement might have been while power was off, in which case there might be a few things we can try, though am not 100% sure yet if that was the cause)
The faulty drive and the new drive are both 2TB. The new drive was hot-swapped. The dashboard recognized the new drive and said it was doing a “rebuild,” shortly thereafter the new drive began to blink red. When the original faulty drive was in place, data on the device could be accessed. Once it was replaced with a new drive none of the other data could be accessed. And yes, when I said system I was talking about the Drobo.
thanks for clarifying bairdj,
if you can not access anything currently, then you could try the following to see if it helps:
- what happens if you remove the replacement drive (the one that is blinking red)
(does the drobo, and dashboard show you a popup message or recognise that the blinking drive has been removed?)
if after the removal (and waiting at least 10 minutes) all other drive lights are solid (non-blinking) and ideally green depending on the amount of free space you have (but if you still can not access anything), you could try using the dashboard tool to shutdown the drobo, and then to try a full reboot of the computer and the drobo.
what happens now?