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Perc 6i RAID 5 question
Over the weekend one of our PowerEdge R710 servers went down which had a RAID 5 array with six 1TB SATA drives. We powered it up to the RAID Configuration Manager and only 3 of the 6 drives were Online. Drive 3 was showing up as Foreign and we then noticed that its drive light was flashing yellow. Two other drives, Drive 0 and Drive 1, just showed up as Ready in the RAID Configuration Manager and their drive lights were solid green. Consequently, all 3 virtual disks we had created on the array are offline. We tried replacing Drive 3 with a new drive to see if it would rebuild the array, but it appears that it won't give us the option to rebuild with Drive 0 and 1 not being Online. We tried clearing the Foreign Disk and then it showed up as Ready, but failure is predicted and there is still no option to rebuild. It seems unlikely that three drives failed over the weekend so we are hopeful that there is some way to get at least Drive 0 and 1 back online so we can rebuild the array, but we can't see any way to do it in the Configuration Manager.
Is there a way to get Drive 0 and 1 Online instead of Ready? Thank you for your help!
DELL-Joey C
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March 16th, 2016 20:00
Hi there,
Unfortunately, Drive 3 foreign config was cleared, instead of being imported. Moving forward with the issue. In order for Drive 0 and 1 to be online, they must belong to the RAID group. RAID capability would not be able to add back the drive into the RAID group. Do you have the latest data backup of the server? If no, and data is important to the company, I would need to suggest 3rd party company data recovery in your area. (Label all drive as where/which slot they belong)
You may have 50/50 chance to get back your RAID config, but it is risky. It is call "Retagging". This method is by deleting RAID and recreate RAID as it was in previous. In your situation it would be RAID5 with 6 1TB drive, with 3VD. You may need to note down the size of each VD, stated in PERC BIOS. It must be the same size when recreate. AND do remember, uncheck "Initialize VD" when creating RAID.
Fingers crossed.