RAID-1 mirror reinitializing question...

[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

 

[Michael Hawes]

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

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.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

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.

So how (as what) has it been initialized then?

 

[Geir]

Folkert Rienstra skreiv:

So how (as what) has it been initialized then?

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

Geir

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

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?

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.

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?

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Folkert Rienstra skreiv:


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

Is "AFAIK" about all the research that you did on this project?

Geir

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