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November 26th, 2024 16:40
unable to import foreign RAID on RAID controller card perc H200I (newest firmware H200I_07.03.06.00 )
Hi Dell specialists,
I have a raid problem here and I feel I did something stupid.
Some help is needed to solve this one and I can't find anything useful on the net.
situation.
Dell T310 older poweredge server
and Perc H200 controller card, newest firmware.
2 virtual drives are on it in RAID1 configuration both of them 3.7 TB.
One of these drives was full and I required a solution for that.
The idea was to temporary exchange one set of RAID drives holding a virtual drive which was configured on the same H200 controller card for another set and go back to the first one when needed by use a 'import foreign' option which should be in the H200 controller card bios, (It can
be entered by pressing Ctrl +C during boot.)
So I stupidly deleted the virtual disk raid configuration for the right raid drive in the controller card menu thinking I could simply do a 'import foreign' on the same card , to have 3.7 TB of data back.
The problem is I do not see any option like that in the H200 menu.
https://dl.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_ser_stor_net/esuprt_dell_adapters/poweredge-rc-h200_user's%20guide_en-us.pdf
The user manual says only this on page 56/57:
"...Activating a Virtual Disk
A virtual disk can become inactive if, for example, it is removed from
one PERC H200 card and moved to another one. The Activate option allows
you to reactivate an inactive virtual disk that has been added to a system.
This option is only available when the selected virtual disk is currently inactive.."
But I don't see any "activate" menu option. Also i seems that this only becomes available after the card recognised as a 'virtual disk', in other words only when the card has already accepted 2 drives as being an existing RAID.
I am not a specialist, more like a hobbyist for server administration, but it seems this card only has options to build a new RAID 0, 1 or 10, delete complete raid configuration or manage an existing RAID.
There is no other option. So now i have 2 healthy drives full of data that can not be imported to the same perc H200 card as a RAID1.
I assumed before starting this attempt to exchange the set temporarily the card would have options to migrate and import virtual disks. Apparently this logical idea was not realistic.
Does anyone have experience with H200 raid virtual disk migrations?
My only option now is to connect one of the raid drives to a usb connector and connect it as en external drive to copy the data on it to a new created virtual drive, for it seems that is the only thing the card can do?
Another manual i found described to run windows os and to "rebuilt" the raid from there. This server is running linux so that option is in any way not available, or it should be a flash stick with windows portable. Also, can windows do configuration for raid controller card configuration stuff? I didn't understand.
Why is this critical function not available on perc H200 when an existing raid set of 2 drives is inserted in the poweredge server?
thanks for any help.
DELL-Charles R
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November 26th, 2024 21:45
Hello,
First go ahead and try to copy the information or if this is critical data and you don't have a backup, consider a data recovery company.
Action would be Activating a Virtual Disk but deleting the array looks like it is not possible anymore as you have found.
H200 User guide Page 56 Activating a Virtual Disk
https://dell.to/4i5skxg
Note: Activation of migrated virtual disks is only supported when the migrated virtual disk(s) is in an optimal state and contains all the physical disks.
It would not be optimal if it is deleted.
The management for this controller is in the controller BIOS or by using OpenManage Server Administrator.
The last option I was looking for is to do a RETAG but it does not look possible on the H200:
Normally you would perform a retag on the higher end controllers, which is recreating the Virtual Disk without initializing. Unfortunately the H200 doesn't support doing a retag because it automatically initializes the drives after creating the Virtual Disk, in doing so it deletes the data. Your best bet would be to delete and recreate the Virtual Disk and restore from backup. If there is no backup I would suggest taking to data recovery companies.