You can start by verifying you have back up of the data on the RAID 5. Have you reseated the drive in the same slot or tried the drive in another slot if available on the server? Is there a light on the drive when you insert? It is possible that the drive is seen as a foreign drive.
I would suggest installing OMSA (Open Managed Server Administrator) on the server. It is very useful tool that allows you to manage the hardware from inside the OS. From that utility you can view the status of the drives. If the drive does show up as foreign then you would want to look at clearing the foreign and then the drive would show up as ready and rebuild.
If you can't do it in the OS, then boot to CTRL-R, go to the PD MGMT screen to look at the individual drives. There may also be a Foreign screen. To clear the Foreign Config, you need to highlight the controller on the VD MGMT screen, hit F2, Foreign Config, Clear. If the drive has existing metadata on it, the controller will mark it as foreign. The foreign config must be addressed before anything can be done with the drive. Once cleared, you can assign the drive as a hot spare to begin the rebuild.
You said you replaced the failed disk with a new one, so it was not part of the "initial configuration". Even if the drive was part of the initial configuration, the fact that the drive was out of the array for even a millisecond means that it must be rebuilt into the array. "Rebuilding" is the process of putting data on the new disk to match and fit in to the array of other disks. In a RAID 5 configuration, data AND parity (used to recreate/calculate data on a missing disk should one fail) are written across all disks in the array. When one drive fails, the data stays accessible because the combination of data and parity can be used to calculate the data on the missing disk. When replacing that failed disk (or if the original disk goes offline for even a millisecond), the data and parity for that missing disk must be calculated and then written to that replacement disk.
Assigning a drive as a hot spare is just this controller's way of starting a rebuild on a new drive.
True. It was over a year ago that the block was lifted (via firmware udpate) for non-certified drives. So, assuming your controller has the latest firmware on it, it should allow you to use a non-certified drive. If using non-certified, just be prepared for potential problems by staying on top of your backups.
Yes, good point. I said "be prepared for potential problems" if using non-certified drives. If using a non-enterprise class drive as a replacement, that's just crazy.
DELL-Willy M
1 Rookie
•
802 Posts
14643
0
Posted October 11th, 2011 15:00
You can start by verifying you have back up of the data on the RAID 5. Have you reseated the drive in the same slot or tried the drive in another slot if available on the server? Is there a light on the drive when you insert? It is possible that the drive is seen as a foreign drive.
I would suggest installing OMSA (Open Managed Server Administrator) on the server. It is very useful tool that allows you to manage the hardware from inside the OS. From that utility you can view the status of the drives. If the drive does show up as foreign then you would want to look at clearing the foreign and then the drive would show up as ready and rebuild.
Let us know if you have any further questions.
Dell | Social Outreach Services - Enterprise