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Need to replace drive but OpenManage not allowing failing drive to be set to 'Offline'
Hi,
Hopefully a quick and easy solution to this as I'm procrastinating at the moment.
Have a Poweredge 1800 (PERC 4/SC, RAID5) and got a predicted failure on one of the SCSI drives. It's hot-swappable and we've got the replacement.
However, OpenManage is not allowing me to set the failing drive to 'offline' so that I can swap it out. I'll choose the offline option from the dropdown and when executing it just blank screens (see picture). Is this a sympton of something not quite right? No problems with other options (blink/unblink).
Alternatively can I just boot into the PERC menu, set the current drive offline, swap out, set new drive to rebuild from there?
Appears to be a split opinions when I look at other similar issues on other forum threads i.e. some say you should just pull the drive and swap it even without setting it offline first.
thanks,
Alex
DELL-Chris H
Moderator
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8.4K Posts
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June 27th, 2012 07:00
Alex,
It may be that you are using an older version of OMSA or that the controller is out of date.
With the drive not going offline.What you can do is power the server off, once it is powered down then remove the drive. Power up with nothing in that slot, the array should show as degraded. Insert the replacement drive and it should start to rebuild.
Let me know how it goes.
theflash1932
7 Technologist
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16.3K Posts
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June 27th, 2012 08:00
I'm with Chris - it may be out of date firmware that can't communicate properly with the newer version of OMSA you have installed (you have at least version 6.5 installed). You can also do this in the CTRL-M utility for the PERC as well ... CTRL-M, Objects, Physical Drives, pick your drive, then Force Offline.
alexdis
6 Posts
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June 28th, 2012 02:00
HI Chris/Flash - thanks for your responses.
In the end, I was able to execute the offline option by changing the browser for OMSA from IE to Firefox. So I was then able to swap the drive out and it rebuilt the new drive with no issues.
Strange that IE, or at least my IE, was flaky with the OSMA (which is version 6.5)
Thanks for your suggestions. Hopefully somebody else might find them useful if they experience problems with Openmanage and a drive failure. I was looking for a non-OSMA option that would minimize the chance of corrupting the array or something else going wrong.
thanks again,
Alex
SDSU ISM
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March 13th, 2013 11:00
THANKS ALEX. Installing FireFox 3.5 (the highest version that OMSA 6.5 can use) solved my problem. I upgraded all BIOS, BMC, and PERC 5/i Controller drivers/firmware and the problem would not resolve. Worked with Dell Chat Support today, but they could not resolve the problem either and told be that I would have to take server down to swap the drives. I even ask Dell if this was maybe Java (J2ee) issue and they said no. WOW! So simple a solution. Thanks a bunch. You just saved me 6-8 ours of being offline to rebuild the drives during POST. Bill in San Diego.
alexdis
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March 14th, 2013 03:00
Hi Bill,
Glad that worked for you too.
I always think that the OP should leave a note on a thread saying if, or how, the problem they were having has been resolved for anyone who may search on it months, or even years, later.
Nothing more annoying than reading about a person having a similar problem to you and then just disappearing from the discussion without telling anyone how they (presumably) fixed it!
regards,
Alex
mlm002u
1 Message
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July 14th, 2015 06:00
Alex, I too would like to say thanks! I had the same issue on an old 1950, and installed an old version off Firefox (3.5), and this did the trick!
Still helping, 2+ years later!!!!