How to rebuild Raid1 on Poweredge T110 II

Hi there Kawin,

Before we proceed to provide guidance, may i know what is the operating system that you are using there? Is Dell Open Manage Server Administrator installed?

Have you done a system backup?

Thank you for the quick reply.

The OS is windows server 2008 R2.  

Open Manage server Admin is installed.

Backup is done.

Please advise.

Regards,

Kawin

Hi Kawin

Assuming that your T110 II is using a S100 for RAID in your server.

S100 is a software RAID for PowerEdge, therefore all function is within OpenManage.

First thing is to make sure that disk0 is failed/offline in OMSA, if not, set it to Offline.

Next is, the replacement disk is clean, formatted.

Replace disk0, after shutdown.

Rebuild will begin after it is set hotspare in OMSA. If needed, in OMSA, VD0 drop down - Available Task - Rebuild.

Do let me know how it goes.

Reference: OMSA7.0 Manual (ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_electronics/esuprt_software/esuprt_ent_sys_mgmt/dell-opnmang-srvr-admin-v7.0_User%27s%20Guide2_en-us.pdf)

... more detail  

the replacement harddisk is exactly same size and they (the degraded and the replacement) are both Dell.

hello Joey,

Thanks for your quick response.

I have tried exactly what you tell me to do.

Here is what I did

1. Take off the faild (disk0).

2. Boot into windows and In OMSA I see the status is failed.

3. I shut down the server and insert a new harddrive (NTFS formatted). and boot into windows.

here is what in OMSA  look like. Notice the replacement harddisk status is Ready.

4. I selected the "Assign/Unassign Dedicated Hot Spare" on the degraded drive and execute.

5. After I hit the execute button it says like this

And i cannot go any further.  Please advise what should I do. 

Regards,

Kawin

Hi Kawin,

Mentioned that you notice replacement harddisk is at Ready status, can you check if the Available Task is Assign Hot Spare option available?

Or, in Virtual Disk, can you click into the name of the Degraded state, and check what is available.

thank you Joey for your great support.

I will give you as much details as I could.

1. In OMSA  under physical disks

I got 2 physical disks as shown.   None of them got any available task.

1.1 When I expand the plus sign on Physical Disk 0:0, the details is shown like this

1.2 and for Physical Disk 0:1, the details shows like this

2. Under Virtual Disks

2.1 The available tasks for the Degraded one are  3 options.  I tried Assign/Unassign...   and the result is as I've mentioned in the previous post. 

2.2 and the available tasks for the Ready one (the replacement) is only "Delete"  . Nothing else

2.3 When I click on the Name of the Degraded one (the name is "NONE") , I got something like in this picture.  No Task Available.

2.4 When I click on the Name of the Ready one ( The name is also "NONE"), I got something like this.

Please advise

Regards,

Kawin

Hi Kawin,

Probably I'll need to make it clear on my assumptions.

1) Is your server only contain 2 Hard drives?

2) Originally, does the server have 2 VDs?

3) If Q2) is a "No", did you notice it before installing the new hard drive?

BTW, thanks for the screenshots, did a great info to me.

1. Yes, only contains 2 hard drive.

2. Originally, there were 2 physical drives and I created RAID 1 ,  so after the raid created, only 1 Virtual drive appeared in the OMSA.

the picture below I edited to show what it looked like before the failure.  the status was green and the state was either online or ready. I can't remember exactly. Sorry bout that.

3. I noticed there was only 1 virtual disk which was stated under the "Layout" column in the virtual disks table in the OMSA  as "RAID-1" (please see picture)

After I took off the failed harddrive and put in the replacement, there were another virtual disks appear and was stated as Non-RAID under the layout column in the VD table in the OMSA.  exactly like this.

This pic is the current details of my server.  

Or if you would like me to do any steps over again I would like to follow.

Hello Joey,

I think it would be easier if I start it over from the very very beginning including creating RAID1 because not sure if I created RAID correctly.

Forget about the previous scenario we discussed.

Please give me a hand please.

OK. Now I have PowerEdge T110 II with 3 hard drives and I would like to create RAID1 before installing windows server.  How would I achieve this?

Note:  I mentioned 3 hard drives because 2 would be used for RAID1 and  the other one left I would love to keep it for RAID rebuilding experiment. 

1. Do hard drives need to be formatted?  and what is the file system to be formatted?  Is is NTFS?

2. Once I get into RAID bios of the PowerEdge T110 II,  what should I do next? 

3. After RAID1 created, and windows and OMSA is installed. What should I do next?

4. Is there any further or additional steps?  Please advice. I really appreciat your help.

Best regards,

Kawin

Hi, Joey

You rock!!!   It is rebuilding now.   Thank you a lot for your great helps.  really appreciate.

Look like it will take a big while for rebuilding, doesn't it?

BTW :emotion-4:

If you don't mind, can i get a bit more details which i've experimented experiencelessly.

1. When i first created RAID,  I didn't format the hard drives. The hard drives were absolutely pure and virgin :emotion-4:   brand new freshly unpacked from the package.

I put them in the slots, boot the server and got into RAID management in RAID bios (pressing Ctrl-R). Then create virtual disk which was RAID1.  It took only a few second to complete the RAID1

The question is...  Is it OK  for not format the drives? 

2. For the replacement hard drive, in order to do the rebuilding,  is it necessary to format the hard drive before doing the hotspare?? Or I just can put

a virgin hard drive  in and do assign the hotspare?

Thank you a lot Joey.  It's been such a great support. very quick response. I really appreciate.

Best regards,

Kawin