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I have an IBM server x3400 with 8 drives divided into two arrays. After reboot, ServerRaid lost the configuration of the Raid-5 array. The 6 drives that used to be part of this array are there, but it seems like I need to initialize them in order to configure the array again. Can I configure the array again without losing the data on the drives?

Oren Mel
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  • On older Adaptec cards, sometimes the RAID stripe would be lost, and the drives would all be present, but no array. If you knew the RAID stripe IDs of the drive, you could do a "quick init" and if you were lucky, it would boot normally. I know this isn't a direct answer, but something to look into. – DanBig Aug 28 '13 at 15:23
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    If you boot the server into the ServeRaid gui (I can't remember what you have to press, but you'll see the prompt. I think it's like Ctrl-H or Ctrl-I), some hardware allowed you to "copy the RAID configuration from the drives". Basically the drives stored a copy of the array config as well. I've done this in the past but don't know on your xseries (and the raid ctrlr/disks) if that's an option or not. – TheCleaner Aug 28 '13 at 15:29

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This is Adaptec SAS RAID, quite unlike previous SCSI RAID controllers. It keeps the config on disks, and imports it into controller on startup. That's probably what went wrong. Ctrl-A is the key into config utility. But beware- most things that can be done there are destructive. Especially initializations. Probably the best shot is to power off, remove two RAID1 disks, and try starting up with remaining 6 disks. If it recognizes the RAID5 config there, you'll have a chance to do backup.

Marx
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