Problem with RAID. System not booting. Multiple disks showing Foreign.

When I go to import the foreign config I get a warning about Offline disks. Since there is an offline disk I canceled the foreign config import and went to force the disk online. I then get a warning about data corruption if I force the disk online.

Should I force the disk online first or just import the foreign config?

Hi,

In foreign view, does the virtual disk properties as expected it is? 

The prompt when import foreign isn't on offline disk but offline virtual disk. So, it's better to confirm in foreign view, the configurations are as what you have configured, then import foreign. 

Hi,

The screenshot that you have, seems to be in VD Mgmt view. It should be showing virtual disk offline as there is foreign config. Can you proceed to Foreign View and import it, once you have confirmed the configuration is correct. 

You are right that screenshot was from the wrong menu. I was able to import the foreign config from foreign view. I did get an error during the import but the good news is I have three disks online now and one rebuilding. I am going to wait for the disk to finish rebuilding and try to boot.

If the array won't import, you'll need to look at restoring from backup. The controller log might specify why the import fails, but we won't have a way to do anything about it. 

Now there is another approach you can take. You can delete the array and lay down another with identical parameters and choose to *NOT* initialize. The initialization is what begins the blanking of the data blocks. I'd check on PD0 and confirm it's state, then move forward.

I was thinking I should be ok at this point. This is a RAID 6 setup and one of the disks was used as a hotspare. I think PD0 was hotspare. So the VD should be able to run with a minimum of 3 disks. Additionally the controller appears to be rebuilding PD1 which must be possible using the parity from the 3 online disks. 

I am going to let PD1 finish rebuilding before booting to the operating system. If I can boot to the operating system I will clear the foreign config on PD5.

I'd agree with that gameplan. Letting the rebuild complete isn't going to cost anything but time at the worst case, and if it pays off, save a fair amount.

PD 1 finished rebuilding. I was able to boot to the OS afterward so that's a good sign. Next I chose to rebuild PD0. After rebuilding PD0 I found out I was wrong earlier about which disk was hotspare. PD5 was now showing as hotspare and attempting to take over for PD0. This didn't make sense to me as PD0 was showing online with no errors so I stopped the hotspare from replacing PD0. I actually just deleted the hotspare from the configuration because it kept trying to replace PD0. 

Anyway, now I have all 5 disks in the RAID 6 functioning and online. The operating system is booted. The only strange thing is the VD is doing a background initialization. I thought this was only done for a newly created VD?

Generally speaking, yes, background initialization is most commonly seen with new virtual disks. If I were to hazard a guess to why we see one now, I'd expect it to be related to the VD falling to an offline state, like in your earlier screenshot. 

Background initialization is done and everything is back to normal.