thanks, I will be adding disk this weekend. Can't afford Portlock, but I will backup all my data.
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Adding disk to RAID 5
We have a Dell PowerEdge 800 with PERC4/SC, U320 RAID controller; three 73GB SCSI HDD's. There is space to add a fourth drive. Will the added drive require me to backup all data, reinitialize the array, and restore?
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Answers
hey there alextoft.... I added the new disk as ID:08 to the existing array of dev 00, 01 and 02. Reconstructed the drive which finished 100%, all was looking a-ok, but now I cannot boot the server. I reseated the PERC and all connectors. (ps: also added 2GB RAM, from 4x256M to 2x1G+2x256M)
Here's the boot info:
BIOS A01
PE EXP RAID Controller BIOS 1.09
PERC 4/SC Std FW 3300 DRAM=64MB
1 Logical drive on Host Adapter
1 Logical Drive Failed
Unresolved configuration mismatch between disks and NVRAM on adapter
Adaptec AHA-2940
{Long beep starts and continues every 1sec. }
CTRL-M gets me into the RAID config and shows that drive 02 and 08 are Failed. (The original array was ID:0,1,2 and I put new drive on ID:8) The Objects/Physical Drive/View Drive Info looks ok. All drives are the same. I see there are options to Rebuild Drive and Force Online, also Clear. Do you have any advice? Did I need to do some sort of SAVE to the RAID config after reconstruct?
It's 6pm here PST and I'm fearing a long night ahead of me. I did make a FULL backup on Fri night, but don't want to have to reinstall server and restore backup.
Thanks for any help you can give me.
That info was given to me by a Dell tech. They won't officially support people doing it for obvious reasons. I usually use HP/Sun hardware, not got too much Dell kit, hence I've only done it once but for me it did work. I'm sorry to hear you've not had the same experience.
Have you had a look at the partitions from something like a Knoppix CD to see if the partition table and MBR are still intact? If you can't see any partitions you have nothing to lose by trying a drive rebuild and force online.
If not I think it's going to be the news you don't want to hear; reinstall, put on backup software, restore. This exact situation reminds me why I push Portlock so much, it really is a lifesaver.
Being PST, you've probably done this all already, so I hope your night didn't suck too much.
Dell Tech support think it's the PERC controller (or cable) gone south and are sending them to me. after clearing the NVRAM the controller doesn't recognize any physical drives. I hope the logical drive is still intact. Until then I moved the backup to a spare server and am restoring files as needed. right on about Portlock, wish I had spent the $ for it, but hindsight 2020.
tech said I did everything right, but there was a PERC firmware upgrade, and BIOS fw too that would, maybe, have helped, hard to say. Can't imagine that the drives are problem, hope not. i'll let you know the outcome
Dell Tech Support came through. They shipped me a new controller and cable which arrived this am. The reconstructed config was on the drive, so saved it to NVRAM on the PERC and everything came back as hoped for. Our contract is next biz day and when i called to check status they said the parts didn't leave Austin until 4pm yesterday and Qualixserve wouldn't be on-site until Wed. I was resigned to this but a tech named Jack Shooter escalated me to 4 hr contract and they shipped the parts froom oakland within 15 minutes direct to me; I got them two hrs later, 11am here; impressive. The 24/7 4hr contract is $1335 for 3 yrs for the PowerEdge 800, which is pretty reasonable given the degree of service that I just experienced. I'm going to consider it for a couple of our critical servers. Ok, word out....
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by: alextoftPosted on 2007-04-13 at 01:04:27ID: 18903977
No, although you are highly advised to image your server with Portlock Storage Manager before you try this:
Boot the Dell Server Assistant CD and run the Raid Array Configuration Utility
Select Reconstruct.
Select the array to be rebuilt.
From the Reconstruct Drive menu, select the Logical Drive to which you would like to add the new drive.
The utility should now display your new drives as Ready.
Use the arrow keys to move to the new drives and the <Space Bar> to mark the drives you want added.
Check that RAID 5 is selected and then choose Reconstruct.
A progress bar should appear showing the new drives being added to the array.
Once done, you can reboot and the server will have the larger array available to it. You can then either resize your partition (Portlock useful for this), or create a new one and make it available to your existing NSS pool.