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Foreign Configuration
Poweredge 710 with PERC 6/I; 2 array's, 1 2 discs in RAID 1 and second in RAID 5 6 drives. Here is what has happened; on 7.2.15, i noticed physical drive 3 blinking amber. When i replaced it with same capacity drive, i must have inadvertently released physical drive 2 loose. So, i inserted drive 2 back into the same slot and replaced drive 3. Now, i get the boot banner about a foreign configuration being present and to either press "c" or "f" to import. I go into the BIOS of the PERC 6/I and view the foreign configuration. It IS drive 2 that is marked as foreign and if i view the preserved cache, it DOES in fact reflect our current setup (in that the preserved cache says it is from the "Data" drive which is drive D: in windows). While in the BIOS of the controller, i see that drive 3 is "missing" and marked as "Ready" not online. Since this is a RAID 5, i want to be really careful about how i go about adding/importing drive stuff here as if i lose 2 drives, i lose the array. What is the proper procedure to add the missing drive and deal with the foreign configuration?
carnold5
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July 8th, 2015 18:00
Maybe good news! I did exactly as you said; all drives are in and in their correct space (installing a replacement drive 3) delete the VD then recreate the VD. Leave advanced unchecked and then take drive 3 offline. Boot the server and still see a foreign config banner but did not press any keys and let the server boot. Drives 4-7 look like they are rebuilding (i havent seen any disk light activity from them in almost a week). Now, what to do with drives 2 and 3? These do not have any activity at the present time. Awaiting further instructions
theflash1932
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July 8th, 2015 23:00
Again, your only "play" is with disk 2. If it is still showing "foreign" after a retag, then there is a very good chance it is also bad, which means data recovery is your only option. When you created your array for the retag, did it let you select disk 2? Again, if you can't get disk 2 online, then there is nothing left to do.
carnold5
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July 9th, 2015 05:00
So i tried to import the foreign config and it failed. However, drive 2 did not go blinking amber or offline (not sure if the drive is bad or not).
I have another 710 with the same size and amount of drives. Since disc 2 holds the only config of the failed array, can i put drive 2 in that 710 and see if i can reconstruct the failed array?
The retag did let me select disc 2 and it is online.
theflash1932
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July 9th, 2015 14:00
You said disks 2-7 were your RAID 5 ... disk 2 is completely worthless by itself.
carnold5
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July 9th, 2015 21:00
Exhausted every option (even recovered 800GB of exchange data). Cleared the foreign config, while i was in CTRL-R, i noticed disk 2 in the ready state and i can not force it online. Reboot the server. Continue my exchange recovery process. Should disk 2 rebuild or do i need to does something to it so that it starts to rebuild?
theflash1932
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July 9th, 2015 22:00
No, you can't force online a Ready disk. With the array offline, and valid disks not showing foreign (or Failed), this is where you would do a retag. Why did you CLEAR the foreign configuration?!
lfeldman
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July 10th, 2015 13:00
You're already way past the point of no return for needing proffessional data recovery. Attempting a rebuild with 2 drives in unknown condition and unknown array consistency at this point will make it much, much more complicated for even a professional data recovery lab to recover your data and maybe even lead to unrecoverable data loss.
Even worse is if you cause some unrecoverable data loss that makes the exchange database unmountable after RAID data recovery, you will be spending thousands more to repair the database.
Here is the list of Dell Partners for data recovery:
www.dell.com/.../EN Partners
i strongly suggest you at the very least you talk to each of them and get an impression of the costs you might expect and a free diagnostic done before making a decision to continue troubleshooting.
Good Luck.
carnold5
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July 10th, 2015 16:00
I did a retag a couple days ago, remember? I cleared the config because i had to get past this issue so i could reseed the exchange DB. Everything is working now except drive 2 still in ready state. I guess i will replace that drive. When i do, should i be able to insert another drive and it start to rebuild or do i have to "do" something to initiate the rebuild?
lfeldman
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July 15th, 2015 12:00
As Theflash1932 stated, you have very few options left and no safe options(options that don't have a high chance of corruption).
Here's a list of dell preffered partners for data recoveyr:
www.dell.com/.../EN Partners
and further info about RAID recovery:
http://www.raiddatarecovery.com/
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/devices-supported/raid-data-recovery
Best of luck.
carnold5
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July 22nd, 2015 20:00
I have already moved past the data recovery (i recovered the data) but i still need to know how to replace/or get drive 2 to rebuild. Still is in the ready state and does not appear to be participating in the RAID. How do i get drive 2 to online state?
theflash1932
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July 22nd, 2015 22:00
If I were to ignore the entire post and just answer your question:
You must assign it as a hot-spare.
carnold5
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July 23rd, 2015 08:00
It is weird to have to reboot a server in order to mark a drive hot-spare when the server is hot-swappable. Maybe it is me or maybe i am missing something? Ideally, i want to insert a drive and have it rebuild without any rebooting or making drives......
I marked it hot-spare and reboot the server. Drive 2 still does not rebuild or participate in the array. Is there something else i need to do?
theflash1932
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July 23rd, 2015 14:00
You don't have to reboot the server. The only reason you would have to reboot the server to assign a hot-spare is if you were running a system that doesn't support OpenManage Server Administrator or remote access through a DRAC.
Again, ignoring everything else in this thread, if your hot-spare is not rebuilding, then 1) your array is not actually degraded, 2) your array is offline, 3) the disk is not compatible with the array (mixing SAS/SATA/SSD, wrong size, wrong type, etc.), 4) the disk is bad, or 5) the array is broken and it cannot rebuild a missing disk. You could export the controller log to find out more information on it.