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Bill H

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Dell 2950 Disk Issue

Hey guys,

Ran into an issue today. I have a Dell 2950 Server that I inherited, it has 6 Drives in a RAID-5 setup with 2 VD's.
Today it wont boot with the error message: "Foreign Configuration found on adapter" and 2 logical drives failed and if i hit C to go to the Configuration Utility, 2 disks show as MISSING and the RAID is in an OFFLINE state.

How do i fix this to get the server up?
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Boot to CTRL-R, on the VD MGMT screen, highlight the controller (top-left), hit F2, Foreign, Import.
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Bill H

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Will i lose any data by doing so?? It has critical files
No, all it is doing is telling the controller to use the foreign configuration on the disk that matches the configuration on the controller.
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Poweredge, i did that it and now it  looks like one disk is failed. I booted it up, and it said partially degraded raid array.

I got a black screen after POST. any thoughts?
Sounds like your OS needs to be repaired now.  You'll need to boot to Recovery Console, loading the drivers for the RAID controller at the F6 prompt (or using nLiteOS.com to integrate the drivers into the installation media).  Start with a CHKDSK /R, then try FIXBOOT and/or FIXMBR on the next trip to RC.

You can rebuild or replace the disk showing failed.
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Thanks poweredge, i cant seem to track down the PERC 5/I raid driver on dell's site, i only see the update packages. Any suggestions?
It's on the FTP site (http://ftp.dell.com).  Working with Dell trying to get the "hard drive" (ZPE) versions restored to the Drivers and Downloads site.

64-bit:
http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER97902M/6/DELL_MULTI-DEVICE_A07_R211424.exe

32-bit:
http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER97889M/10/DELL_MULTI-DEVICE_A07_R211422.exe
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Thanks! Now i just need to track down a USB floppy..since it wont read my USB flash drive :(
If you don't have one, I'd just use nLiteOS.com to integrate the driver into the Windows media (will create a new CD).
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Thanks, that worked.

I ran CHKDSK /R right now,  but its just a black screen under that command, is that normal?
It should indicate that it has started.  You should have had a command prompt, typed in "chkdsk /r", then it should have given some volume information and the progress of each  of 5 stages.  You just got a blank screen?  Recovery Console recognized your Windows installation though, right?
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I did it again, and it popped it up, it just went back to the C: thing though after it.

I ran fixboot but it didnt help.
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Poweredge, should i run FIXMBR, it said it could damage your partition tables if you proceed!
So, CHKDSK /R didn't run at all?  But no message as to why?

You should only proceed if you feel comfortable, however, I have never seen any "bad" come from FIXBOOT or FIXMBR, and having done it more times than I like to think about, can't imagine under what circumstances it would damage the partitions tables.
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SO i reseated the drives, and ran CHKDSK /r
 and it said:

The volume appears to contain one or more recoverable partitions
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