topic Re: Newbie: Getting a NetAppFAS980 to boot in ONTAP Hardware

Newbie: Getting a NetAppFAS980 to boot

bobthetree — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:23:32 GMT

Howdy,

My name is Ross and I am a graduate student worker at Texas A&M for the CS group here. We recently received a big donation of 4-5 racks of NetApp FAS900 series controllers and drive bays/drives. Right now I am simply trying to get the first rack (A FAS980 with 12 drive bay racks) to boot to a working prompt so I can further investigate what needs to be done. The approach so far is incremental... I have the main device (FAS980) and one drive controller plugged into the main device via fiber. We have a monitor/keyboard/modem device which is new to me but I think everything is set up that needs to be. Correct me if I am wrong, but the OS sits on the CF cards that are inserted into the main device. We have an OS loaded on there and are trying to get it to boot, but when it has the following sequence leading to an apparent crash with no prompt ever appearing.

Disk label processing fail

Error dumping core

Halting

Is there a guide somewhere on how to get started with the FAS980 system? Any help pointing me in the right direction would be great. I know the general forum etiquette about searching for solutions and believe me I have tried... Seems netapp has their documents locked down pretty good.

Thanks,

Ross

Re: Newbie: Getting a NetAppFAS980 to boot

danielpr — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:57:13 GMT

Hi Ross,

Have you tired to to Erase (reseting) Storage System configuration any time ?

You can do this if you dont need the data back and only if you have the license of this system in backup.

Thanks

Daniel

Message was edited by: Daniel Prakash

Re: Newbie: Getting a NetAppFAS980 to boot

bobthetree — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:05:28 GMT

Sounds like erasing the storage system configuration would involve being able to get to the command prompt which I have been unable to do.... If we can get do that it would be fine as we have no use for any data on the disks as they are new to us and chances are the people who donated it erased whatever was on them anyway. Here are some videos which better show what my situation is. My understanding is that we did not get a license with these machines.

00004.wmv
no disks attached, infinite reboot loop, console view
CTRL-C yeilds nothing useful (no prompt, just hangs at the ... the reboots)

00005.wmv
disks attached, halts, LCD view, original card

00006.wmv
disks attached, halts, LCD view, original card

00007.wmv
disks attached, halts, console view, modified card (OnTap from NOW site)

00008.wmv
disks attached, halts, LCD view, modified card (OnTap from NOW site)


CTRL-C never gets to the "special boot menu" on any card, with or without disks attached

Re: Newbie: Getting a NetAppFAS980 to boot

pascalduk — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:02:44 GMT

bobthetree wrote:

CTRL-C never gets to the "special boot menu" on any card, with or without disks attached

Really weird that you don't get a confirmation that it will boot into maintenance mode:

Starting Press CTRL-C for special boot menu
......................
Special boot options menu will be available.

Just chekcing. Are you sure you pressed control-C ?

Re: Newbie: Getting a NetAppFAS980 to boot

bobthetree — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:20:18 GMT

I am definitely pressing CTRL-C. Any clue what can be done to rectify the problem with processing the disk labels?

Re: Newbie: Getting a NetAppFAS980 to boot

bobthetree43 — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:30:20 GMT

Bump.... maybe I have the wrong firmware? Anyone sure of a place I can download working firmware for this system from?

_ross

Re: Newbie: Getting a NetAppFAS980 to boot

netappnasadmin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:53:52 GMT

Go to

https://now.netapp.com/eservice/SupportHome.jsp

in software column to right u can get wht you need.