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I have an LSI MegaRAID SAS 9260-4i Controller with two drives attached to it with a simple RAID1 array (virtual drive).

One of the disks failed (complete disappeared from the system) so I asked the datacenter to replace the failed drive.

After they replaced the drive, the controller lost all configuration regarding the RAID1 array it had configured. Now during POST it shows: enter image description here

After entering the controller configuration utility it shows both drives (old working one and newly replaced one) as unconfigured good. It does not show though the 'Foreign' prefix so I cannot import the old configuration and recreate the missing RAID1 Array. enter image description here

Doing a 'Scan Devices' did not find any foreign configuration for me to import.

How can I recreate the missing RAID1 array without losing any data?

Cha0s
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1 Answers1

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I'd be suspecting that BOTH drives had been replaced by the datacenter personnel and not just the one drive. Otherwise, you'd see one configured drive.

A couple of things, a RAID1 situation does not necessary guarantee you from failure. I have had one drive fail in writing properly just to take the other drive with it strangely enough.

Another thought, what about a failure in the controller itself? Was the system properly power cycled and not just rebooted with the old drives in there? It could be that the controller just got glitched.

mdpc
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  • I just checked the drives serials and the good drive is still connected to the controller. The server was gracefully shut down before the DC replaced the faulty drive. If the controller got glitched wouldn't the old raid configuration be detected on the good drive (marked as foreign) ? Both drives now appear as though they are empty. Is there some procedure that I can recreate the array without deleting any data on the good drive? – Cha0s Oct 11 '14 at 00:23
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    Are you sure that the drives were configured correctly in RAID1? If they were, taking the "old" drive out of the array and just booting from it in a non-raid configuration should yield you a successful boot. – Mark Henderson Oct 11 '14 at 00:29
  • Yes, the drives were configured in RAID1 (1 virtual drive as MegaRAID names it). How should I configure the 'good' drive on the controller so that the server will boot from it? At the moment there are no virtual drives configured so the server won't boot at all. – Cha0s Oct 11 '14 at 00:41
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    I didn't manage to recreate the RAID1 array nor any other array using the 'good' drive (after each reboot the controller lost the configuration only for that drive) but I followed your advice and connected the 'good' drive to the onboard SATA controller and it booted right away! So I managed to backup everything before creating a new array from scratch. Thanks! – Cha0s Oct 12 '14 at 00:54