thaNks for the LH PRO Raid 5 advice, however, I worry that...

[Luke_4]

HP said a rebuild should work, but...
My controller is an HP D4943A,Atec Electronics.
The H disks are HP D3583C, 4.2 GB.

The techs who build and resell these older HP parts are unsure if a rebuild can be done-they said this card with these disks do not work in a hot rebuild
-as they may not be configured correctly-my config. check HP NETRAID says no Hot Spare.

No media errors on disks 1 & 3, checking my firmware.

Any further suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks again

[BR642007]

You don't need a hotspare to do a safe rebuild.
A hotspare is used when a disk fails, then the array is automatically rebuilded to the hotspare disk. You don't need to replace the failed disk first before the rebuild can start.
In your case, replacing the D3583C disk with a new one should make a rebuild possible.
This can be done 'hot' without powering off the server or shutting down the operating system.
There are 2 more things you might want to check before starting:
1: the firmware of the harddisks, check http://www.hp.com/cposupport/swindexes/hpfirmware19319_swen.html for instructions, firmware files, catalog file and firmware tool.
2: There have been an issue with certain quantum disk, used as D3583C, the 'mode page setting' can cause a disk to report a fail status.
download the firmware at: http://www.hp.com/cposupport/servers/software/887r7ens.lcp.html and use it with the tool and the catalog file.

Marco.