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Adding a disk to Raid 5 on Perc 5/i on PowerEdge 2950
Hello All,
I have a PowerEdge 2950 running Novell Netware 6.5 SP8 and a raid 5 array with 3 disks + 1 hs. I need to add another disk to the array and can't seem to find a way to do it.
If I try to do it from the BIOS Setup of the PERC i see the disk as ready but I can not reconstruct the virtual disk to add it, as it seems these option has been removed from the bios setup starting with PERC 4.
I have read a lot of documentation and it seems the only way to reconstruct the VD is by using OpenManage from Dell, which from what i see on the is not available for the combination PE2950 + Netware
Any ideea on how I can do this? Or do I need to destroy my whole VD, recreate it and then get fired for loosing a bunch of information?
Thanks
theflash1932
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January 9th, 2010 12:00
Well, that is one way, but I can't recommend that without first knowing how you feel about being fired ;)
You can do this using Dell's OpenManage Live! CD - it is a CentOS Linux Distro equipped with OpenManage Server Administrator and Diagnostics, etc.
http://linux.dell.com/files/openmanage-contributions/omsa-54-live/omsa-54-040308.iso
If you are familiar with a Reconstruct/Reconfigure in OpenManage Server Administrator, then you will have no problems doing it with this. Simply download ISO and use to create CD. Boot to this CD (it will take several minutes to load), after several minutes, you will be prompted for Language, then you will be asked to set the Password (there is no verification, so don't fat-finger it), then sign in using "root" and your password. Then you'll see the command to start the GUI by typing "startx". After the GUI loads, there is a Dell Utilities folder on the Desktop - inside is Server Administrator.
Dev Mgr
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January 9th, 2010 20:00
One note: Netware cannot work with (virtual) disks over 2TB, so if you currently have 3 x 1TB disk in a raid 5, you cannot add another drive (as you'd end up around 2.7TB).
silviu.claianu
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January 11th, 2010 00:00
Thanks guys. I will try the linux thing on Saturday and post back the result.
PS My disks are 300 GB so it should not be a problem with being over 2 TB
silviu.claianu
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January 16th, 2010 13:00
It worked like a charm. It took about 10 hours to reconfigure the array, but in the end it was fine.
theflash1932
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January 16th, 2010 19:00
Good to hear!
tonymarler
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May 21st, 2010 09:00
@theflash1932 I've followed your advise and after running STARTX have opened Dell utilities folder and started the Server Administrator which loads a Konqueror browser but it says under the username/password boxes that the browser is incompatible - odd considering it is all loaded from the CD ISO image!
I spotted on the Konqueror File menu the option to load page using Firefox which did then. This does then let me log in but just as the Server Administator window appears i.e. you just about see the main configuration screen... the browser shuts down completely.
Do you have any thoughts?
Thanks Tony
theflash1932
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May 22nd, 2010 09:00
I haven't seen that before ... try just opening Firefox and going to localhost:1311.
silviu.claianu
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June 2nd, 2010 06:00
For me it also did not work in Konqueror. I just copyed the address and then pasted it into a firefox browser and then it worked fine.
tonymarler
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June 3rd, 2010 03:00
Thanks for the replies... unfortunately pasting or using port assignment didn't work for me the OMSA just closed down immediately. I eventually backed up the data and moved to another working box and then rebuilt the RAID array from scratch using the standard tools available at boot time. Thanks anyway.