BCM 400 v3.7 - Flashing lights, non responsive

[dsghi]

OK, every google search I do with anything related to BCM brings me to this site, so it looks like I'm among experts. I apologize in advance if I leave anything out, I'm far from a BCM expert, but my client needed help with a remote office.

The scenario is they did a power system cutover and it sounds like they didn't do a proper shutdown of the BCM, it's got battery backup, but my assumption is it ran dead or was overloaded. Either way, after the system came up, the DIDs all work, but the auto attendant and voice mail do not operate and we can not access the unit via IP. All the lights on the front of the unit flash together.

Obviously something power related has caused this failure. Reading forum posts to similar situations, I pulled the BFT, I see no visible damage, it has blue capacitors. When I have a monitor attached, it starts to boot, It gets to "Decompressing Linux... OK. Booting the Kernel." and then screen output stops.

The hard drive light continues to flash as if it's being read for quite some time. But the system never comes up fully.

I reseated about every card I could, this unit has RAID and 2 hard drives. I have read posts from people with raid controller problems, so I tried to bypass the RAID by plugging directly into the primary drive, no change.

I highly doubt my client has a backup, so I fear the thought of doing a software restore. I'm going to try replacing the BFT... and of course if that doesn't work, not much left other than the hard drives.

I just wanted to see if there was an expert that had any suggestions or other steps I should try.

Thanks!

 

[BombOne]

I dont have any other steps for you to try, you are on the right track. I do want to point out that if the monitor shows linux booting, you have a 4.0 system not 3.7. and even if the hard drive is good, that is all the further you will see. You can hook a serial cable to the BCM and see more detail during boot, then could maybe see where it is failing. If phones and DID's come up, this will probably be a hard drive trouble.

 

[gberger]

You said you bypassed the RAID and connected the primary hard drive directly with no luck.Have you tried connecting the slave directly?It looks like the primary drive is toasted.
Give it a try with the slave.

 

[cook1082]

I go with gberger if it comes up then all you need is a new drive and it will load/copy from the mirror to the primary.

 

[dsghi]

Thanks guys, I'll definitely check on the serial connection, I guess they did a 4.0 upgrade at some point, as the drives and chassis are labeled 3.7 .. I'll also try the slave drive directly. I appreciate the information!

 

[Firebird Scrambler]

It looks as if the hard disk has suffered corruption and is either faulty or has some bad sectors. Where possible, try and see if you can connect it to another computer or via a IDE to USB cable.

I prefer the latter one as it's easy to verify the hard disk status.

I totally agree with the other comments.

All the best

Firebird Scrambler
Meridian 1 / Succession and BCM / Norstar Programmer in the UK

http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbromley

If it's working, then leave it alone!.