Roy Littlewood
asked on
Can I delete a virtual disk without losing data on my disks
I am running a Dell T110 ii server with a PERC S100 controller, in what I am told is RAID 5, I am remote from the site so I cant confirm that it is defiantly RAID 5
We had a problem a few days ago when I saw the following errors in Dells Open Manager
Disk medium error detected: Physical Disk 0:1 Controller 0, Connector 0
Redundancy lost: Virtual Disk 1 (Virtual Disk 1) Controller 0 (PERC S100)
There is an unrecoverable medium error detected on virtual disk: Virtual Disk 1 (Virtual Disk 1) Controller 0 (PERC S100)
Disk 0:2 was Offline, and the Virtual disk was showing Degraded
I set disk 0:2 as Hot spare and it started to Rebuild the Virtual drive, which failed after 7 or 8%
I now have all 3 disks online but the Virtual disk is showing as Failed, the only option it gives me is Delete, which I am hesitant of doing, any pointers on what to do next, I don't know the condition of the drives apart from they say they are online
MOST IMPORTANTLY
Disk 0:2 was offline but Disk 0:1 had the error?
We had a problem a few days ago when I saw the following errors in Dells Open Manager
Disk medium error detected: Physical Disk 0:1 Controller 0, Connector 0
Redundancy lost: Virtual Disk 1 (Virtual Disk 1) Controller 0 (PERC S100)
There is an unrecoverable medium error detected on virtual disk: Virtual Disk 1 (Virtual Disk 1) Controller 0 (PERC S100)
Disk 0:2 was Offline, and the Virtual disk was showing Degraded
I set disk 0:2 as Hot spare and it started to Rebuild the Virtual drive, which failed after 7 or 8%
I now have all 3 disks online but the Virtual disk is showing as Failed, the only option it gives me is Delete, which I am hesitant of doing, any pointers on what to do next, I don't know the condition of the drives apart from they say they are online
MOST IMPORTANTLY
Disk 0:2 was offline but Disk 0:1 had the error?
ASKER
I'm running Open Manager, only just noticed that it does say RAID-5 which I thought it was originally
All 3 drives are showing online and (No Tasks Available)
The Virtual Drive is showing as Failed
Error Logs Show
Disk medium error detected: Physical Disk 0:1 Controller 0, Connector 0
and
There is an unrecoverable medium error detected on virtual disk: Virtual Disk 1 (Virtual Disk 1) Controller 0 (PERC S100)
So I am assuming Disk 0:1 is faulty and needs replacing, once I do that, will the Virtual disk rebuild itself and why was Disk 0:2 offline when I looked? and what damage has that caused?
Backups are scares as the person who looked after the machine before me never did a single backup in 4 years, I do have a backup but I cant guarantee that it was before or after the drive went bad, so I am in a bit of a grey area
All 3 drives are showing online and (No Tasks Available)
The Virtual Drive is showing as Failed
Error Logs Show
Disk medium error detected: Physical Disk 0:1 Controller 0, Connector 0
and
There is an unrecoverable medium error detected on virtual disk: Virtual Disk 1 (Virtual Disk 1) Controller 0 (PERC S100)
So I am assuming Disk 0:1 is faulty and needs replacing, once I do that, will the Virtual disk rebuild itself and why was Disk 0:2 offline when I looked? and what damage has that caused?
Backups are scares as the person who looked after the machine before me never did a single backup in 4 years, I do have a backup but I cant guarantee that it was before or after the drive went bad, so I am in a bit of a grey area
SOLUTION
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ASKER
Backup was taken with Windows Server 2008 R2 built in software
Full system image
Full system image
ASKER
The raid also includes the operating system which seems to be running without issues, so could this mean that both drives were not failed at once?
I only installed Dell Open Manager on Thursday and that is as far as the log go back so i cant tell what happened in what order, all i know is the errors were there when i started the software
I only installed Dell Open Manager on Thursday and that is as far as the log go back so i cant tell what happened in what order, all i know is the errors were there when i started the software
What does OpenManage say for the RAID array?
I'm a bit confused now, where is the OS installed? If it was set up on the RAID 5 array that is no offline then for obvious reasons there would be no OS to boot.
I'm a bit confused now, where is the OS installed? If it was set up on the RAID 5 array that is no offline then for obvious reasons there would be no OS to boot.
Deleting a virtual drive in Dell Openmanage will delete the data which is on this virtual drive. However you do not have much choice here. If you have backup then restore from it after you rebuild the raid with new virtual drive.
ASKER
The server only has 3 drives each are 500GB, it shows in the os as one C drive at 930GB
Open Manager shows the Virtual drive as Failed and being Raid 5
It shows all 3 drives as online and they are all 500GB
On first installing Open Manager the errors were:
Disk medium error detected: Physical Disk 0:1 Controller 0, Connector 0
Redundancy lost: Virtual Disk 1 (Virtual Disk 1) Controller 0 (PERC S100)
There is an unrecoverable medium error detected on virtual disk: Virtual Disk 1 (Virtual Disk 1) Controller 0 (PERC S100)
When I looked at the hardware,
It showed the Virtual drive as Degraded
Disk 0:0 Online
Disk 0:1 Online
Disk 0:2 Offline, this was then set as hot spare and it started to rebuild the Virtual drive, at 7% it failed and now all drives are showing as Online with a Failed Virtual Drive
Open Manager shows the Virtual drive as Failed and being Raid 5
It shows all 3 drives as online and they are all 500GB
On first installing Open Manager the errors were:
Disk medium error detected: Physical Disk 0:1 Controller 0, Connector 0
Redundancy lost: Virtual Disk 1 (Virtual Disk 1) Controller 0 (PERC S100)
There is an unrecoverable medium error detected on virtual disk: Virtual Disk 1 (Virtual Disk 1) Controller 0 (PERC S100)
When I looked at the hardware,
It showed the Virtual drive as Degraded
Disk 0:0 Online
Disk 0:1 Online
Disk 0:2 Offline, this was then set as hot spare and it started to rebuild the Virtual drive, at 7% it failed and now all drives are showing as Online with a Failed Virtual Drive
What is the partition layout? How is the OS still booted and accessible?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
The drives are configured as a single partition C
The drives are not hot swap
They are badged as Dell WDC WD5003ABYX-18WERA0
but i suspect they are Western Digital WD RE4 WD5003ABYX, this is the drive I am looking at getting, i am looking at getting 4, 3 to replace the raid and 1 as a hot swap in reserve
500GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
The drives are not hot swap
They are badged as Dell WDC WD5003ABYX-18WERA0
but i suspect they are Western Digital WD RE4 WD5003ABYX, this is the drive I am looking at getting, i am looking at getting 4, 3 to replace the raid and 1 as a hot swap in reserve
500GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
How are the backups?