Replacing a defective Array Controller

[Ayman Altounji]

Hi,
My array controller was broken and after it was replaced with a good one, my raid set (data) was gone. How can I recover my raid set. Where is raid configuration stored? on the drives or on the controller? Does it mean if my controller is broken, my raid is gone too? Is there any way to avoid this data-lost ? redundant controller helps?

[Ayman Altounji]

Hi, what your Array Controller

[Ayman Altounji]

Array information in stored in 2 primary places on the harddrives the array controller. If a controller is replaced and the firmware level is current then another array can take it place or it can be upgrade ie 2dh to 3200. This array writes a risc table to the drives so if the array fails the replace reads this info and says hey this was a raid 0 or raid 1 etc. So the info on the drive takes precednce to the info on the controller. So always keep your drives in the same order when moving between units or swapping controllers

[Ayman Altounji]

You may be able to get your data back if there is not any corruption from the other controller going bad.
If you set the raid set parameters back to the original settings the data may show back up again.
Mike

[Ayman Altounji]

Assuming that you are using an HSG controller, there is a SAVE_CONFIGURATION command that saves controller configuration info onto your disks. In the event of a controller replacement, the new controller would use this to configure itself.

[Ayman Altounji]

When replacing a Smart Controller , the controller will read the configuration information from the drives . You'll still need to run
the System Configuration Utility (so that the server will see the controller)and the Array Configuration Utility ( to enable the controller to see the drives) .