Raid 5 repair in Windows Server 2003

[nobodycares123@gmail.com]

I hope I could find some help here. Thank you in advance. It's about
a Raid-5 in Windows Server 2003 (fully updated) environment, software
Raid on four SATA drives.

One of the four drives in my Raid-5 array was not working and needed
replacement. All four drives are identical Seagate 500Gb drives. In
the Disk Management Console, Disk 4 was listed as "Missing" and the
rest of the array is in "Failed Redundancy". Per Microsoft TechNet's
instructions, I tried to "reactivate" multiple times and the drive was
confirmed dead.

So, yesterday I found the Serial number of the missing drive under
Device Manager (by elimination, that is), and took out the old drive.
I powered it back up and Disk 4 is still missing, just to confirm that
I have pulled the right one.

I powered down the server again and put in the new drive in identical
hardware configuration as before.

The server started up and recognized my new drive, asked me to format
it as a "Simple" volume. As it finished, it was already a Dynamic
volume (to my surprise, I thought I had to convert it). And now the
new drive shows up as a separate Simple volume by itself.

Following Microsoft's TechNet note, I right clicked on the Raid-5
Volume and tried to click on "Repair Volume", but that option is
greyed out. I know for sure that the replacement drive is 100%
identical to the old drive, it was bought in a batch, same model. In
the Disk Management console, I can still see four drives in the Raid-5
array with one "missing", and the new drive as a separate drive.

What am I missing? How do I "move" this drive into the Raid-5 array,
instead of it being a separate individual drive and let it "Repair"?

This array was setup using Windows Server 2003 with SP2, software
Raid. It's mostly a file server and I can deal with the slower speed.

Thank you very much.

 

[mark]

Re: Raid 5 repair in Windows Server 2003

I'm assuming the array is being managed by a RAID controller (like Adaptec
or 3Ware) of some sort. Usually they will have some sort of console or
software to assist in managing the drives and arrays. You should also see
some sort of boot menu options during power that will allow access to the
basic RAID controller management utilities, something like Ctrl + A.
From there you should be able to initialize the new drive into the array and
have it fault tolerant again.

Hope this helps,
Mark

<nobodycares123@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1183771962.169579.62000@g37g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> I hope I could find some help here. Thank you in advance. It's about
> a Raid-5 in Windows Server 2003 (fully updated) environment, software
> Raid on four SATA drives.
>
> One of the four drives in my Raid-5 array was not working and needed
> replacement. All four drives are identical Seagate 500Gb drives. In
> the Disk Management Console, Disk 4 was listed as "Missing" and the
> rest of the array is in "Failed Redundancy". Per Microsoft TechNet's
> instructions, I tried to "reactivate" multiple times and the drive was
> confirmed dead.
>
> So, yesterday I found the Serial number of the missing drive under
> Device Manager (by elimination, that is), and took out the old drive.
> I powered it back up and Disk 4 is still missing, just to confirm that
> I have pulled the right one.
>
> I powered down the server again and put in the new drive in identical
> hardware configuration as before.
>
> The server started up and recognized my new drive, asked me to format
> it as a "Simple" volume. As it finished, it was already a Dynamic
> volume (to my surprise, I thought I had to convert it). And now the
> new drive shows up as a separate Simple volume by itself.
>
> Following Microsoft's TechNet note, I right clicked on the Raid-5
> Volume and tried to click on "Repair Volume", but that option is
> greyed out. I know for sure that the replacement drive is 100%
> identical to the old drive, it was bought in a batch, same model. In
> the Disk Management console, I can still see four drives in the Raid-5
> array with one "missing", and the new drive as a separate drive.
>
> What am I missing? How do I "move" this drive into the Raid-5 array,
> instead of it being a separate individual drive and let it "Repair"?
>
> This array was setup using Windows Server 2003 with SP2, software
> Raid. It's mostly a file server and I can deal with the slower speed.
>
> Thank you very much.
>