RAID 1 Drives showing foreign status

Techyashish,

The rule of thumb with Foreign Configurations is that if the Virtual Disk is booting you would Clear the Foreign Config, if the Virtual Disk is NOT booting then you would Import the Foreign Config. So if yours isn't booting to the OS then I would go to the Raid controller and then Import the Foriegn configuration for there.

Let me know what you see. 

Hi Chris H,

Thanks for replying.

These disks are not boot drives, We were able to boot up  the system with other drives.

I swaped the drives back to original sequence , now one disk is in ready state and other one is failed

Question - Can I bring disk to online state without  destroying data?

You should be able to bring the ready drive up. It won't be dependent on the failed drive for any of it's data, since it is a RAID 1. Provided the data copy on the ready drive is good, you shouldn't have an issue. The data is either readable, or it isn't. This would just have the controller attempt to interface with the drive. If it fails, it won't do anything further. 

The main thing to watch out for, in my opinion, when working with an existing RAID array, is to make sure that you don't initialize the volume, unless you know you want to. The initialization is the process that would cause data loss.

If you can, I'd recommend installing OpenManage. It'll give you a bunch of options, including the ability to manage your array within your OS.

If that's not an option for whatever reason, then the answer will depend on what controller you're using. Do you know what PERC is running your array?

Also I want to move from Ready to 'Online' Disk is already showing Ready status

We are going simply to BIOS Settings.

What tool are you using to manage you're array? Seeing as this is an R710, I'd imagine OpenManage. If that's correct, you should be able to go through OpenManage Server Administrator, select the storage tree on the left, select the controller, then you should see 'connector.' Connector would just refer to drives connected to SAS A or SAS B. Select them and you should see a physica disks option. You should then be able to select the 'ready' state from a drop down box.

If you're using something else for management, let me know, and I can try to get you a more applicable answer.

Thanks for the reply Dylan!

Where i can get information on how to move drive from Ready to Online.

Running PERC H700

Dylan,

Drives are showing failed and foreign again. It was showing Ready on Friday. Please advise.

Here's the user guide for the H700. I imagine it'll be useful to you.

https://dell.to/37GbBgB

You should be able to use the Control + R utility to access the PERC utility, then use Control + N to navigate to PD Mgmt. You should then be able to select the disk. Pressing F2 should bring up a context menu where you can set state.

You can try to set the state there. Normally, I wouldn't expect an array to have drives as ready and failed. Foreign and failed or online and failed are what we'd expect. With you having a drive in ready and failed, I'd be concerned that the other drive is missing it's RAID data. That RAID metadata can be rewritten by creating a new RAID 1 volume of the same parameters (what we call a retag), but you have to make sure to *not* initialize. If PD Mgmt doesn't offer you the options to online the drive, retagging may be the next best option. Just keep in mind that the recommendation is to make sure you have a good backup of your data, prior to a retag. The ones I've done have always been fine, but a mistake can cause data loss.

Disk group 0 looks like it should be functional. Disk group 1, provided the data copy on the foreign drive is readable, you should be able to import it, like Chris had said. Looking over the thread, I don't see that you stated you've done that. Can you confirm whether or not you have tried importing the array?

If you've tried importing the array and you're seeing this again, you can try the retag approach I mentioned. Retagging is generally made a last resort. If you continue to see issues after a retag, then that would suggest to me that your array is bad.

OMSA can provide a controller log from the PERC providing significantly better detail as to what is happening with your storage, than any other interface. If you want to grab that log, I can work with you on getting it sent to me for a review.

https://dell.to/39RN8aD

importing it means import foreign configuration at bootup ?

That is one way of doing it, yes. Other methods would yield the same result.