PowerEdge R420 - Integrated Perc H310 Raid not finding drives

Uahmed1,

Could you clarify a couple things for me? You state at the beginning  "They are visible in the PERC BIOS", but then later state that the "Hard Disks are not listed there" would you clarify, and possibly show screenshots of what you're seeing? Also, would you verify what the Virtual Disks status is showing as, as well as the Physical Disks? For example like Foreign, Missing, Failed, Ready, etc. Also would you private message me the svc tag of the server so I can firm the hardware installed?

Thank you.

Chris, 

"""Could you clarify a couple things for me? You state at the beginning  "They are visible in the PERC BIOS""""

please see the following : https://imgur.com/nR6Gmrt

"""and possibly show screenshots of what you're seeing?""""

please see the full list of screenshots here : https://imgur.com/a/vrV6X

"""Also, would you verify what the Virtual Disks status is showing as, as well as the Physical Disks? For example like Foreign, Missing, Failed, Ready, etc."""

It says no physical disks detected. https://imgur.com/EBai0zE

in Virtual disk management. all options are disabled. https://imgur.com/iqHw4YM

please also see the following two images in context of BIOS version etc. 

https://imgur.com/lr9pm2w     https://imgur.com/zugX4Lq

As for foreign, missing, failed, ready. I don't know where to find these options. could you please guide me?

thanks,

If you havnt all ready ,Factory reset if its non production.

You should try building the Raid from the Ctl R menu, the system build menu i dont like very much.

After its built and you can see raid you made, press F2 and intlaize the raid, and let it build, then start you OS install and see if the raid part is there. if your useing say two drives disable the raid card and let the OS mirror it as the raid card might not be supported, you havnted said what your trying to install

Hi Usman,

Your screenshot https://imgur.com/EBai0zE shows "PERC S110 Configuration Utility." From what I understand, you have data on the drives and a previous virtual disk configured, correct? Was the S110 controlling this virtual disk and you've just added the H310, and want to use it instead? Which PCI slot is the H310 installed in?

Thanks,

Hi Chris, 

I was able to find PERC H310 Mini BIOS Configuration Utility. Please take a look below. 

https://imgur.com/a/9xl8t

I think I might have to re create the RAID configuration. 

But my question is, if the RAID configuration is missing, why is the system still showing bootable operating systems and virtual disk configurations (i have posted screen shots to those in original post)

could it be possible that previous configuration has corrupted or the it was factory reset and it lost the configuration? if yes how do i restore it?

thanks

One thing to look at is where the previous OS drives are connected.

With the previous configuration, if based in the controller, you can do a retag. A retag is deleting and recreating the Virtual Disk, but as it was. The only difference is when doing a retag you do NOT initialize the drives, as that will delete the data. So for example, if you have a 2 drive raid 1 you would delete the virtual disk, then install 2 drives and then recreate the 2 drive raid 1, then before you reboot to boot you need to remove one of the drives. Then when you verify data and OS you can insert the last drive again, in order to rebuild it.

"""One thing to look at is where the previous OS drives are connected."""

does this mean i will have to create a RAID config and *not initialise* it. and do it for every possible physical arrangement of hard disks? i.e changing physical slots of hard disks and trying it out for all combinations. 

""" then before you reboot to boot you need to remove one of the drives. Then when you verify data and OS you can insert the last drive again, in order to rebuild it."""

can you please explain this a bit further? or point me to some official documentation that explains how to do this?

thanks.

You don't want to move the drives around, as you will need to exactly copy the original Virtual Disks settings (stripe size, VD size, etc) and in their original positions.  The retag process is the same as creating a new Virtual Disk, but you don't select it to Initialize, which would delete everything on the drives. Once you have the VD recreated you will pull the failed/replacement drive out and then try to boot to the OS. If you can get to the OS and everything seems fine then you can reinsert that removed drive to start the rebuild.

thanks for the reply chris. 

i have a couple of questions. 

1. """as you will need to exactly copy the original Virtual Disks settings (stripe size, VD size, etc) and in their original positions""" - is there a way to find out what the virtual disk settings were before from some sort of built in backup system in dell BIOS etc?

2. """but you don't select it to Initialize, which would delete everything on the drives.""" - in case this 'delete everything' scenario occurs. and i want to recover the data on these drives. what sort of disk image backups should i take? should i take:

(a). RAID 0 setup on both disks separately. i.e 2 RAID 0 setups for each disk individually.  

(b). RAID 0 made up of both disks as one RAID disk. 

(c). RAID 1 made up of both disks as one RAID disk. 

(d). raw dumps working in ATA configuration. 

3. if I take raw image snapshots of both disks working in ATA configuration option (d), do I need to take option (a) disk snapshots as well?

meaning, i had one disk. and I think that this disk was running in RAID 0 or it was running in ATA mode. then when I wanted to recover data from that disk. and then I ran data recovery on raw ATA image only. would i still need to run data recovery on RAID 0 image. or ATA image would make up for RAID 0 individual configuration. 

1. There should be an indication in the controller log

2. Not certain any are a good option, may consider taking drives to a data recovery company. 

For the logs, follow this page to a walkthrough on exporting the logs. 

Let me know how it goes.

chris, 

thanks for all the help.

as for iDRAC - I'm getting license expired or missing. 

so I tried the alternative method. listen in the article here : http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/sln304272/export-support-assist-collection-and-raid-controller-log-through-poweredge-lifecycle-controller?lang=en

and over there I'm getting this, the option to export logs isn't showing up. 

You cant recover from Raid 0.  You lose a drive 100 percent of your data is gone forever end of story.