Locate HDD via blinking Led

[itpp20]

I used to have this tool but can't find it anywhere, I am looking for a standalone tool (Windows) which can blink the LED of a harddrive in order to find it among a set of drives.
I have a set of 4 and one has failed but can't see which one it is, before I pull out the wrong one

 

[degrub]

Maybe on here,:

https://www.oldergeeks.com/

Is this on a raid array or just multiple drives in the pc case ?

 

[dosborne]

Can you run a diagnostic on the drive (or is it too far gone)? Then the one with the solid light? Or run diagnostic on the "good" drives and follow the activity.

 

[itpp20]

I didn't look when it failed to see if the LED was red or indicated a problem, done a re-init of the drive and it started spinning again, after that I looked and saw the led blinking green next to its mirror but still don't know which is which. It'll be on good luck pulling one as a new one is on it's way.

Oldergeeks looks good but searching always refers to hdd led emulation as software, I may have remembered being able to do this on a raid as a function of the controller driver, but I have memories of a standalone tool being able to do this as well (maybe in combo with a raid controller).

 

[degrub]

my raid boxes will blink the drive light (not part of the drive) on drive error and i have an old PCI raid card that the software would blink a software display window light when a drive error occurred.

 

[itpp20]

Hmm it must have been a controller feature to locate drives, anyway I'll keep searching and have pulled a drive (which was the one giving the error) and its rebuilding atm. with the new drive (WDxxEFAX-Red NAS drives).

 

[RMerlin]

If you are able to read the serial numbers on the drive label, you can use that to identify it. SMART monitoring tools should be able to report the drive's serial.

 

[itpp20]

Yes but that still requires you to pull the drive and if its the wrong one your toast

The s/n does not tell you which slot its in

Pick one here: (hint: only one is the right one)

 

[degrub]

tha is what sharpies are for - write the last x digits on the viewable edge of the drive

 

[itpp20]

In 2017 I didn't give a sh*t about doing that for a system that only was suppose to last 3 years... 5 years on drives are starting to fail, one more to hot replace for another 5 years of runtime. And yes all drives are now marked

 

[RMerlin]

Yes but that still requires you to pull the drive and if its the wrong one your toast

Turn it off first.

 

[dosborne]

Exactly why I put labels on the tray & the drive, and the slots they go into, and print the info sheet for the Nas that shows the bay, model and serial of the drive, etc

 

[itpp20]

Turn it off first.

Thats not an option or I would have done that, it has to keep running as its been since 2017.

 

[ColinTaylor]

If the drive has failed it seems odd that that is not reflected by the LED on the drive itself. Drive arrays I've used would change colour from green to amber or red depending on the failure state. Alternatively if it's just the "normal" disk activity light then if it's failed it won't be blinking any more because there's no reading or writing. If all your drive lights are "just on" all the time and never change state then it sounds like they're just indicating power to the drive. So to have the ability to flash the failed drive LED would presumably require some manufacturer utility specifically for that unit.

EDIT: I'm a bit confused by posts #4 and #6. It sounds like you've already identified the drive and replaced or reinitialised it. You said "led blinking green next to its mirror". So you appear to know which drive had the problem.

 

[itpp20]

I never looked at the LED's when the failure was reported, I just send a re-init to the disk and it started spinning and mirroring again, after that I had all disks blinking their LED's green and thus no way to find the problem disk anymore.
When the new disk arrived I did a ini/mini/myni/mo and pulled one which was luckily the right one.
(A LED blinking tool would have been handy here but I did not have time to search/wait anymore once the new disk arrived)

 

[ColinTaylor]

(A LED blinking tool would have been handy here but I did not have time to search/wait anymore once the new disk arrived)

What I do in such circumstances is simply offline the drive in the RAID management interface which causes the LED to go out. YMMV (sounds like your hardware doesn't do that).