221 array raid 5 rebuild

[Alan Yankowski]

I have a 221 array in a Proliant 8000 with RAID 5 with 3, 9.1 GB drives. One drive failed. I replaced the defective drive with an exact match including verifing jumpers. On reboot it confirmed finding the new drive and it's inconsistency. However, it did not reboot to Windows NT. It says "missing operating system". When I look at the Smart Start Array Configuration utility, it says that it is rebuilding the array. Will this work, or will I still be missing the operating system after the rebuild?

[Colin_29]

It should not be behaving like that. I hope you have a good backup because I am afraid that you may need it.

I would let it complete the rebuild but I don't hold out much hope.

[Leon Rosier]

Check your boot controller order in the F10 setup. Maybe it switched back to onboard scsi controller.

Leon

[Oleg Koroz]

Try to pull back added drive miracle happens sometimes

[Alan Yankowski]

Thanks, no luck.

The customer informed me that they were getting the missing operating system BEFORE replacing the bad RAID drive. I believe they had 2 or 3 simultaneous problems.

I have been trying to boot the machine with an NTFS floppy, but cannot get the machine to boot from it. The drive spins and then the same missing operating system message. I have used the NTFS floppy to boot other machines so I know it is a valid boot disk. Any other suggestions?

[Colin_29]

To start with DO NOT PULL THE DRIVE YOU ADDED. There is a possibility that once the rebuild is complete the logical drive may be accessible.

Do you have another drive that you could add as a totally separate logical drive?

If so you could try and build a parallel system and then access the original array from it. In this way you could regain the data from the drives.

The end result is likely to be a rebuild so if you have a solid backup of the data you may as well run a system erase and start from scratch right now.

[Oleg Koroz]

Colin your clarification as action can be wrong take away chance to try, I seen many cases where with 2 Series controllers replacement drive cause non-system Disk (along these could happened to newer systems). All depend where you got drive from and how you add it. On the other hand seems right now isn't a key anymore.

[Colin_29]

KOV, I was trying to avoid the removal of a disk that is possibly part way through an expansion. If you start a process that is moving data between drives (as this possibly is) then it is fatal to remove any of the disks part way through.

Fixing problems through forums is never easy. You are relying on the person at the sharp end giving you correct information and you must try to avoid suggestions that may have irreversible consequences.

In this case it looks like the system was dead before Alan started and he is probably facing a rebuild any way.

[Nidal Ali]

Dear Alan,

I hope that you have a backup because may be you need it, let the controller finish rebuilding may be it work again otherwise you have to use the backup if you have.

regards
Nidal Ali

[Alan Yankowski]

Thanks to all.

The RAID rebuild worked fine. Still missing operating system. Cannot find NTFS partition after booting with floppy. Will do complete system reload and hope the backup tape works