Disaster Recovery Plan–Rebuild System Disk (Dell Server 2900 with PERC RAID controller)

Posted by Jim Lahman on Geeks with Blogs See other posts from Geeks with Blogs or by Jim Lahman
Published on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:29:11 GMT Indexed on 2011/06/22 0:24 UTC
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Goal: Since the system disk is a RAID 1 mirrored set, we can rebuild the shadow set by replacing one of the good sets with a blank disk

Steps

  • Shutdown and power down server
  • Remove the disk from bay 9, which is part of the system shadow set. Put this disk on the shelf

Empty RAID 1 bay 9

  • Insert blank/old disk into the empty bay

Label new disk before inserting into empty bay

 

 

Label the new disk before inserting it into the empty bay

 

 

 

  • Power up server
  • During the booting process, the following message appears: “Some configured disks have been removed from your system…”

Foreign configuration found - press 'C' to load config

 

 

 

Press ‘C’ to Load Configuration utility

 

 

 

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Press 'Y' to confirm to load the foreign configuration

 

 

 

  • In this example, the system shadow set is Disk Group 2.  (Before proceeding, confirm this is the disk group in your case).  Expanding the physical disks shows a disk in bay 8 and a missing disk in bay 9.  This is correct.   Now, we have to include the new inserted disk in this group

RAID controller reporting bay 9 is empty

 

 

 

RAID controller reporting bay 9 is empty

 

 

 

  • There may be times when the new disk is seen as a foreign disk.  In this case, do the following:

Foreign disk is reported in bay 9

 

 

Foreign disk is reported in bay 9

  • CTRL-N (Next Page) to Foreign Mgt
  • All the disk groups will be displayed.  Typically, the disk group containing the foreign disk will be grey. 
  • To remove the foreign disk
    • Highlight Controller
    • Press F2
    • Select Foreign
    • Select Clear (do NOT import the configuration!)

 Clear the foreign configuration

 

 

 

Clear the foreign configuration

  • Now the disk can be brought into the system shadow set disk group as a hot spare

 

  • To include the newly inserted disk into the system shadowset disk group, it must be brought in as a hot spare
    • Highlight Disk Group 2 (VD Management)
    • Hit F2
    • Select 'Manage Ded. HS'

Manage dedicated hot swap

 

 

Manage dedicated hot swap

      • Select the disk in bay 9 (Hit space bar to select)
      • Tab to 'OK'. 
      • Hit the return key

Select hot spare to bring into RAID 1 mirror set

 

 

Select hot spare to bring into RAID 1 mirror set

 

  • Rebuild automatically commences

Rebuild in process

 

 

Rebuild in process

 

Restart now or restart after rebuild is completed

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