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October 19th, 2024 06:55
Recover RAID, PERC H710
Dell PowerEdge R720 w/PERC H710 RAID controller
Hello,
I was configuring two new drives that were added to our server. I rebooted and went to the RAID setup. I selected the two drives and created a new RAID. When I rebooted the old RAID was gone. It didn't make sense to me since I only chose those two drives and not the others but now they show up as "ready" and the two new ones are "online".
Is there any hope of restoring the RAID on the other drives? Nothing new has been written to them but it appears that the RAID has been deleted.
No Events found!
LesterAW
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October 22nd, 2024 12:02
In the end, it was possible to restore things.
I restored the partition table from a backup. I guess the LifeCycle controller wiped the partition table. However, the LVM information and all the data was still there. I had to do some work to reconfigure things because the drive had a new ID but everything is working.
Looks like this post was correct:
https://serverfault.com/questions/823813/recover-missing-raid-1-virtual-drive-on-dell-perc-h330-controller
Despite the dire warning, all the data does not get deleted.
The lesson is to stay out of the LifeCycle controller and use Setup (F2) to work with virtual disks. Better yet, use OpenManage.
(edited)
LesterAW
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October 19th, 2024 22:18
This appears to be the same scenario:
https://serverfault.com/questions/823813/recover-missing-raid-1-virtual-drive-on-dell-perc-h330-controller
DELL-Young E
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October 21st, 2024 00:22
https://dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000122457/how-to-import-a-foreign-configuration-in-the-raid-controller-using-the-system-setup-menu
Hello can you see foreign import part from this link?
(edited)
LesterAW
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October 21st, 2024 17:00
I tried recreating the RAID configuration and now it's doing a "background initialization". Since that is underway, should I still check for a foreign configuration?
DELL-Chris H
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October 21st, 2024 17:22
Is there any data on that Virtual Disk? I ask as you stated it was doing an initialization after doing a retag, which is destructive to the data.
LesterAW
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October 21st, 2024 17:55
It's doing a "background initialization" which according to the documentation/information I can find, is more like a consistency check.
There is a data on the drive. I tried viewing the raw sectors from the host OS and I could see the data right away.
LesterAW
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October 21st, 2024 22:09
Since the data looks intact (I can see the header for the LVM2 volume), that seems to suggest that the RAID 6 is actually okay. Is that a fair conclusion? Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to see any decipherable data, right?
DELL-Young E
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October 22nd, 2024 03:01
Hi at this point, I'd recommend you look at the OS file level. Your VD might look okay, but you need to see if the files are seen on the OS.
Respectfully,
LesterAW
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October 22nd, 2024 05:14
@DELL-Young E Right now, the OS can't really see anything because the VD is going through the check. The PERC CLI shows no VDs but fdisk shows the drive with no partitions or any information. If I use hexdump, I can see the valid volume information at the start of the drive.
LesterAW
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October 22nd, 2024 06:45
Okay, well I was wrong about that. I used the wrong CLI command before but this time I got a list of the vdisks. The check is done but the drive is still blank with no partitions or anything. This was an LVM2 drive before and it looked like the information was still there. I have a copy of the VG information.
Can I restore it somehow?