Patent ID: 7624301

Claim:
An apparatus for identifying a failure module in a disk controller that includes a plurality of modules connected on data paths, the apparatus being implemented on a computer executing a computer program and comprising: a test-instructing unit that instructs, when one of the modules detects a failure, the modules to execute an access test to a memory with test data; and an identifying unit that identifies a module as a possibly failed module based on results of the access test, wherein when more than one module is detected to have failed, the identifying unit identifies a common module that is commonly connected nearest to and upper than the more than one failed module on the data paths as the possibly failed module, when only one of the modules is detected to have failed and when a nearest upper module of the only one of the modules detected on the data paths has no other lower module than the only one of the modules detected on the data paths, the identifying unit identifies both of the nearest upper module and the only one of the modules as the possibly failed module, and when only one of the modules is detected to have failed and when a nearest upper module of the only one of the modules has other lower module than the only one of the modules on the data paths, the identifying unit identifies the only one of the modules as the most possibly failed module.