RAID-1 mirror reinitializing question...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Geir
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Geir

Hi,

A friend of mine has a Dell Poweredge server which originally had two
disks in mirrored raid config. Due to a disk error it has run with only
one disk for a few months now. Lately he reformatted that disk and when
I asked if he had put in a second disk to have the raid mirroring
operational again, the answer was 'no'.

Now this Poweredge server runs with a single reformatted disk which has
not been initialized for raid-1.

Is it possible to add a second equal disk and initialize both these
disks for raid-1 mirroring without reformatting the win2003 server os
which is already operational and configured?

Thanks for comments on how to get this up and running as a mirrored raid
without risking to mess up the win2003 server on the original disk.

regards

Geir
 
Geir said:
Hi,

A friend of mine has a Dell Poweredge server which originally had two
disks in mirrored raid config. Due to a disk error it has run with only
one disk for a few months now. Lately he reformatted that disk and when I
asked if he had put in a second disk to have the raid mirroring
operational again, the answer was 'no'.

Now this Poweredge server runs with a single reformatted disk which has
not been initialized for raid-1.

Is it possible to add a second equal disk and initialize both these disks
for raid-1 mirroring without reformatting the win2003 server os which is
already operational and configured?

Thanks for comments on how to get this up and running as a mirrored raid
without risking to mess up the win2003 server on the original disk.

regards

Geir
Click to expand...

Tell him to RTFM!!! If that remaining disk fails, he will be out of a
job! He should add a suitable second disk and add it to the raid array and
set it to rebuild the mirror.

Mike.
 
Geir said:
Hi,

A friend of mine has a Dell Poweredge server which originally had two
disks in mirrored raid config. Due to a disk error it has run with only
one disk for a few months now. Lately he reformatted that disk and when
I asked if he had put in a second disk to have the raid mirroring
operational again, the answer was 'no'.

Now this Poweredge server runs with a single reformatted disk which has
Click to expand...
not been initialized for raid-1.
Click to expand...

So how (as what) has it been initialized then?
 
Geir said:
Hi,

A friend of mine has a Dell Poweredge server which originally had two
disks in mirrored raid config. Due to a disk error it has run with only
one disk for a few months now. Lately he reformatted that disk and when
I asked if he had put in a second disk to have the raid mirroring
operational again, the answer was 'no'.

Now this Poweredge server runs with a single reformatted disk which has
not been initialized for raid-1.
Click to expand...
Is it possible to add a second equal disk and initialize both these disks
for raid-1 mirroring without reformatting the win2003 server os which
is already operational and configured?
Click to expand...

Sure: backup from old and restore to new.
Thanks for comments on how to get this up and running as a mirrored raid
without risking to mess up the win2003 server on the original disk.
Click to expand...

Presumably you are asking whether you can write RAID1 metadata
to a drive that doesn't have it, without damaging the filesystem
(= assuming everything else is equal) and whether such a tool exists?
 
Geir said:
Folkert Rienstra skreiv:


AFAIK it was just connected as a single disk w/o any raid init.
Click to expand...

Is "AFAIK" about all the research that you did on this project?
Geir
Click to expand...

So what conversion possibilities does this controller offer?
If none it is quite simple:
backup and initialize new RAID1 pair and restore.
 
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