Dell Power Edge Raid Controller

[MQCarpenter]

Someone here hit "Clear Configuration" in the RAID BIOS, and now it can not see the drives anymore.

Any ideas on why? Dell's site is thin on this type of troubleshooting. Any site references would be great TIA

Power Edge 4200

 

[mbarlam]

I know why, because you hit "Clear Configuration". You have no more drive setting. I believe you have to reconfigure your RAID. Hope it wasn't a production box. You might be able to CANCEL without saving but I doubt it.

 

[johnv20]

Sorry - raid is gone for good, you will have to reconfigure it

 

[MQCarpenter]

I understand that I need to reconfigure, but why is it not seeing the drives at all? No option to reconfigure works because it keeps responding with "No drives". TIA

 

[johnv20]

Hi,
how many raid controllers are in the system ? If more than 1 go to the adapter menu on cntrl m and make sure you're looking at the correct one. If you have only 1 controller it sounds like a loose cable or something

 

[saddam]

Assuming you are using the DELL PERC II, 2/SC, 2/DC, 3/DC or any of the AMI based PERC controllers.
Press Ctrl+M to enter raid bios, goto configure, view add configuration. Select the drives and create the configuration as it was before. Save the configuration but do not initialise the logical drive.
E.G. Say you have 3 drives in a raid 5 array.
Goto view/add configuration, select all 3 drives by pressing the spacebar, press enter when selection finished.
Then press the F10 key, a dialog will appear prompting for drive size and raid level, set the raid level and accept the configuration. Prec ESC you will be prompted to save the configuration. Do not initialise the logical drive, reboot and you should have your configuration back.

If you did a clear operation on an Adaptec based PERC essentially you formatted the drive and its all gone.
Recreate and restore from backup

 

[MQCarpenter]

There is only one controller.

I appreciate the help Saddam, but the issue lies in the fact that the controller can no longer see the drives, so I can not even get to a point of rebuilding the config.

Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[johnv20]

Can you disconect the scsi cable from the controller card and attached it to one of the on-board scsi channels, reboot the system and press cntrl - a at the 7899 prompt on boot up. This way you will be either able to eliminate the raid controller card or the cable/backplane/drives as the source of the problem