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I stupidly fast initialized an existing Raid 5 Array Virtual disk with 10 Virtual Machines after creating a new Raid 5 Array. The VDs switched order on the list of the Perc Controller. According to Dell, fast initialize only removes the boot files so the data can be overwritten no problem, kind of like deleting a file from the recycle bin.

My server is a PowerEdge R710 with a Perc 6/i Raid controller running ESXi 5.1. The Bios of the R710 and the Perc 6/i controller are both running the latest firmware. I tried the steps on this article: http://www.caseyfulton.com/dell-perc-6i-fast-initialize-how-to-restore/. However the BartPE bootable ise just freezes on the Windows XP slapsh page.

Does anybody know a full proof method? I have backups of the VMs, however I would like to avoid restoring all of them due to time constraint.

Carlo71
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  • Bummer. That's a mistake you'll likely never make again. I don't know that there's a nice way to recovery that data. – ewwhite Aug 25 '14 at 03:59
  • @ewwhite Tell me about it. I am just going to restore the most important VMs now and worry about the not so important ones later. – Carlo71 Aug 25 '14 at 04:05

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If you fast-initialized, but the RAID5 is still configured in the same manner as before, then you may have only deleted the partition table. This can be repaired, but might take a great deal of expertise to accomplish.

If this were a volume with an NTFS file system, there would be more options available. But in your current situation, you may be stuck with trying to contact Dell or VMware for support on the issue (just don't settle for "we can't help" as the answer - that just means you're talking to someone who doesn't know how. Get someone higher-up engaged on the case if need be to give things a try).

Good luck!

JimNim
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  • Thanks Jim. I did know that fast-initialize only deletes the partition table and the boot files. The process was just too daunting for me to recover, so I just restored from backups I had from a GhettoVCB script. It would be great if somebody could answer just for future reference. Thanks again! – Carlo71 Aug 30 '14 at 09:06
  • I'll be sure to add some detailed instructions in an edit to my answer when I have access to my notes on my work system - I have the process documented, but I may want to test that it works when a volume was fast-initialized by a PERC too. – JimNim Aug 30 '14 at 17:52