Adaptec Storage Manager - reset, delete, or rebuild degraded RAID

You can just move to non RAID and lose your redundancy.

Maybe this would work for you
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/22602151/Replacing-Sytem-boot-SCSI-drive-on-HP-Proliant-ML150.html

You may need to remove the working drive and to put in Just the New driev and run the COMPAQ Smart start.
Hopefully it wil detect that there is no EISA partition and create it.

You may have to remirror afterwareds, so break the exising mirror before trying this.

Hi Number-1,

Thanks for your prompt response and I followed your suggestions. The arrays are Raid-1 mirrors (three mirror arrays). I removed the faulty drive and rebooted but the error "...array is Degraded" persists. I entered into the configuration utility during boot and updated the arrays as prompted but I still couldn't add a drive to the degraded array.

The HP Smart Array Advanced Pack (SAAP) you mentioned needs a licence but I should be able to simply add a drive to the failed array and have the controller rebuild it. Isn't that what they are designed for? I also should be able to simply convert the raid to a simple volume. It seems like I can't do either without installing third party software.

Any more suggestions?

EDIT: I am now getting a SMART error on another RAID-1 array. There are no details in the ASM log just "S.M.A.R.T detected for drive..." It happens on both mirror drives on the array. Isn't it a little strange to have both drives failing at exactly the same time? Is this a problem I should take seriously?

You may not have an option to use select a single drive attached to the RAID controller without it being flagged as degraded. You should be able to add a drive to a SATA or IDE controller as a single drive without issues.

Also consider that the working drive may be on its last legs if it's the same age as the one that died. That said RAID1 would be nice to have.

You can try the breaking the mirror manually but that requires breaking all your mirrors

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00378986/c00378986.pdf

CAUTION
Use the following procedure for configurations with only one array on the controller. If you configure multiple arrays on a single controller, all arrays must be broken and restored together. Because of the added complexity for multiple arrays, we discourage this method of creating a backup of the logical driver.

Try booting SmartStart into Maintenance mode to see if it will let you rebuild your array.

Recombining a split mirrored array using ACU
Complete the following steps to re-mirror an array using ACU:
1.
Take the server offline and insert the CD or bootable USB drive that contains the ACU (typically SmartStart) into an appropriate media drive.
2.
Restart the system, booting to the CD or bootable USB drive.
3.
Select the HP ACU from the Maintenance Operation menu.
4.
Select the controller that contains the array you want to re-mirror.
5.
In the Configuration View panel, select the array to use as the source in the re-mirrored array.
6.
In the Available Tasks panel, click Re-Mirror Array.
7.
Select the array to be mirrored to the source. This is usually the array previously split out of the original mirrored array, but it can be another array of the correct size.

Hi, as mentioned I have an Adaptec 2120s controller so not SmartStart or licence for the HP tools.

Yes I can add the (SCSI) drive as a single drive but this is not what I wanted to do. I want to add a drive and rebuild the array. The replacement drives are old but working. I just can't select the drive to rebuild the array from (it is a compatible drive so can be used in the mirror). I don't want to break all my mirrors just to fix one

To remove the RAID would be fine but I have to remove the partition first (and loose the data)

The drive that are now giving  SMART warning are newer and I don't know what the issue is with them.    

Again, what I 'simply' want to do is:- using Adaptec Storage Manager v4.3 or a simple method, either rebuild a RAID-1 array with a spare drive or convert it to a non-RAID single drive.

Rebuilding the array is the best solution. You should be able to add a spare and assign that spare to the array.

Here's the user manual - http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/installation_guides/adaptec_storage_manager_users_guide_for_internal_raid_09_06.pdf

Working with Hot Spares
A hot spare is a disk drive that automatically replaces any failed drive in a logical drive, and can
subsequently be used to rebuild that logical drive. (For more information on recovering from a
disk drive failure, see page 135.)
Hot Spare Limitations
¿ You can’t create a hot spare for RAID 0 logical drives, simple volumes, or spanned volumes.
¿ You can’t create a hot spare from a disk drive that is already part of a logical drive.
¿ You should select a disk drive that is at least as big as the largest disk drive it might replace.
¿ Adaptec recommends that you not designate a SAS hot spare for a logical drive comprising
SATA disk drives, or a SATA hot spare for a logical drive comprising SAS disk drives.
Dedicated Spare or Global Spare?
A global hot spare is not assigned to a specific logical drive and will protect any logical drive on
the controller (except RAID 0 logical drives). You can designate a global hot spare before or
after you build logical drives on a controller; you can also designate a global hot spare while
you’re creating a logical drive. To designate a global hot spare, see page 82.
A dedicated hot spare is assigned to one or more specific logical drives and will only protect
those logical drives. (A dedicated hot spare that has been assigned to protect more than one
logical drive is called a pool spare.) You must create the logical drive before you can assign

Hi, thanks again but I didn't want to create a "hot spare". A hot spare is always marked as that in the ASM software. I simply want to either rebuild or remove the array.

The guide also says:

When a logical drive is not protected by a hot spare, if a disk drive in that logical drive fails, remove and replace the failed disk drive. The controller detects the new disk drive and begins to rebuild the logical drive.

For instance, when one of the disk drives fails in the RAID 1 logical drive shown in the next
example, the logical drive is not automatically rebuilt. The failed disk drive must be removed and replaced before the logical drive can be rebuilt.

The guide also doesn't seem to mention anything about SMART and if a SMART appears in two drives at the same time.

Similar situation on this thread. Looks like the key issue for the author was marking the bad drive as failed.

- https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/26281726/Adaptec-Storage-Manager-won't-pick-up-new-physical-drive.html

In most cases, if you remove and replace a drive in an array that has no hot spare, the rebuild operation should start automatically, but it seems that that did not happen in your case. Look at the manual and see if you can follow the instructions starting on page 122:

http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/installation_guides/Adaptec_Storage_Manager_Users_Guide_for_Internal_RAID_09_06.pdf 

This may be true but when the software realised the drive is failed it removed it from the console itself. I could not mark the drive as failed (it no longer appeared). When I inserted a new drive it recognised it but would not add it to the RAID.

In the end I deleted the whole array and logical drive to remove the error.

I am worried if this happens again and the other issues I listed.

OK so you just recreated the array with the good drive an the spare, right?

I don't know why the good drive would not be recognized and added to the failed array. Did you check for the latest version of ASM?

I haven't recreated the drive yet. I gave up as I was only testing before installing at the clients location (hence using the oldest drives). Yes the ASM software is the latest version.

I'm trying again but it takes time to build the array and if there was any data on the drive it would have been lost or needed to be manually backed up.

Even if there is some random error stopped the automatic rebuilding the array I'm really disappointed that a cannot:

1) (easily) Remove the RAID to create a single drive
2) Get any details on the SMART log entry, or if it is something to be concerned about.

Hi Thanks again for your help but the system (BIOS or Adaptec controller does not have a setting to turn off SMART).

I have nearly given up as last week I tested one of the drives by removing it while the system was powered up. The system marked the drive as 'failed'. When I replaced the drive it started rebuilding the array. I then tried the same thing but powered down the server before replacing the drive. When it powered up it and put another drive in, it would not rebuild the array. This must have been the problem before. It still marked the array as failed but would not allow the array to be rebuilt or reverted to a non raid simple volume drive.

It seems like (and I'm very disappointed that):
1) The Adaptec card or software won't rebuild an array after rebooting when the drive has been removed
2) The Adaptec card or software will not allow a downgrade of a mirror RAID-1 array
3) SMART can not be disabled

You have given many suggestions for help but I have still got a problem with the drives on this server. If possible I'll give you some points but keep this questions as un-answered.

Non of the answers worked for me but Number-1 tried very hard so I feel should be rewarded.