reuse disk pack from scratch - too many hard drives removed

Forum History Drobo
1

I have a 1.3.5 drobo2 with a 4-disk pack. i wanted to completely wipe and reset everythng on the disks and start again fresh. I have backups of anything i need.

I removed all 4 disks from the drobo and attached one directly to my computer, re-initialised and ntfs re-formatted (not quick-format) the entire drive.

I fired up the empty drobo and inserted the re-formatted drive. However Drobo still knows that this drive was part of a previous disk pack and gives me the “too many hard drives removed” error.

Main question
How do I continue from here? I want to use all 4 disks from the previous pack and I am happy to blank everything.

Other thoughts
If I use the “reset” feature of the dashboard (windows) does that change the firmware? Do I need to do the dashboard reset with all 4 disks in, or can i add them one at a time? Is there any point in reformatting the other drives outside the drobo?

2

Nope, the reset doesn’t chagne the firmware. Just reset the drobo v2 & ur Drobo Dashboard will allow U to reformat the BeyondRAID.

3

Thanks so much for the prompt reply. Sorry however, please excuse my naivety, but two quick questions:

  1. When you say “reset the drobo”, how do I acheive that? Does that mean power cycle, dashboard reset button, mystery pin button on the back of the drobo case or something else? What is the exact procedure I need to follow? Also, what does this actually do?

  2. When I do a dashboard reset and/or format, do i need all 4 drives in the drobo from my previous 4-disk pack, or can i start with 1, do a reset/format, add some content and then add new disks as required over time?

4

If you have dashboard 1.5.1 there is a reset button on the tools tab.
You click on that and it resets the drobo and wipes all data off the drives. Including previous disk pack information.
You can do it with all drives or 1 drive in the drobo. As long as a drive is in there to wipe.

If you don’t have dashboard 1.5.1 you can do a PIN reset of the drobo.
http://support.datarobotics.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/32/session/L3NpZC9JWFQqWlBKag%3D%3D/kw/pin%20reset/r_id/100004/sno/1

5

That reset button worries me every time I see it, could it be moved to a harder to find location in the next release of the dashboard?

Putting the “kill all my data” button next to the “Shutdown safely” button has to be a bad idea?

6

When you click on reset, you get a dialog box that makes you spell out ERASE.
Hard to accidentally do that. :wink:

7

Thanks for the answer Jennifer. I was curious what safe guards were in place, but I usually leave it to others to test the waters. :wink: