Looking at the Physical Disk Management page, you can now see the replacement disk is Ready. The warning message below will pop up, select Yes. Scroll down and select Foreign Config, another window will pop up with the option to import or clear the configuration. Now we have orientated ourselves go back to the Virtual Disk Management page, highlight the controller at the top of the screen and press F2 to list the available operations. The last tab shows the Foreign configuration as well and the current active configuration. The next tab, Physical Disk Management shows the new foreign disk in slot 0. Once in the PERC Configuration Utility use Ctrl+ N to switch between the tabs, below you can see the Virtual Disk Management page and the missing disk. Reboot the server and during start up when prompted press Ctrl + R to enter the Raid Configuration Utility. In a Dell PowerEdge R710 server, we could use blank HDD (so no data in it) to replace a failed RAID HDD but, if we have one HDD availble but with data in it we will have, after we have replaced the disk, to instruct the server to clear the 'Foreign' configuration with which the new HDD has been identified and then use it to rebuild the RAID.

Foreign: This means the drive contains some RAID meta-data (coming from an old RAID array the disk used to be a part of), this does not allow the use of this disk, you may firts clean the foreign configuration.Д¬lear the foreign configuration on a HDD using the Raid Configuration Utility.

Ready: Ready to be used (either in a RAID array or as a HotSpare etc).

Online: This means a drive is already a part of a RAID array.

Here is some details about the Dell terminology you may encounter in the physical disk вЂњ StateвЂќ section. Then stop the blinking: ~]# omconfig storage pdisk action=unblink controller=0 pdisk=0:0:1

You can check the correct physical address for your new drive by using the вЂњblinkвЂќ action as: ~]# omconfig storage pdisk action=blink controller=0 pdisk=0:0:1 The command to assign a new disk as вЂњ Global Hot SpareвЂќ is: ~]# omconfig storage pdisk action=assignglobalhotspare controller=0 pdisk=0:0:1 assign=yesД¬heck the resulting state of the 0:0:1 physical disk (line #12): Д¬apacity : 1,862.50 GB (1999844147200 bytes) Once it is assigned as a global hot spare the PERC controller should automatically start the rebuilding processвЂ¦ Most PERC controller will automatically rebuild a вЂњ degradedвЂќ array when a proper HDD is plugged in, but in the case you do have to handle this manually the Dell recommended way (as stated by the Dell official support) is to assign the new HDD as a вЂњ Global Hot spareвЂњ. Adding the вЂњreadyвЂќ drive to the existing array We can see the drive has become вЂњReadyвЂќ (line #11), it is now ready to be added to the existing array. In the above command you need to know the controller ID, which can be found using the information given here and / or here.Д¬heck the new status: ~]# omreport storage pdisk controller=0 We need to get rid of these meta-data before we can add it to the existing array, in the DELL terminology it is called вЂњclearing the foreign configвЂњ, here is the command that allows you to do that: ~]# omconfig storage controller action=clearforeignconfig controller=0 Changing the drive status from Foreign to Ready Used RAID Disk Space : 931.00 GB (999653638144 bytes)ДЄvailable RAID Disk Space : 0.00 GB (0 bytes)ДЄs you can see in the above output excerpt our new drive is seen as вЂњForeignвЂќ (line #11), which means it might has been a part of another RAID array before and it already has RAID meta-data written somewhere. List of Physical Disks on Controller PERC 5/i Integrated (Embedded)Д¬ontroller PERC 5/i Integrated (Embedded)Д¬apacity : 931.00 GB (999653638144 bytes)ДЄvailable RAID Disk Space : 931.00 GB (999653638144 bytes) See the following the command in order to check the current state of the new drive: ~]# omreport storage pdisk controller=0 The вЂњ ReadyвЂќ state is the one we are aiming at. Once your new drive is set up in your server it might be seen either as вЂњ ForeignвЂќ or вЂњ ReadyвЂњ. Checking the current state of your newly added drive The goal of this post is to help you in case you need to replace a faulty disk that is a part of a RAID array built over a PERC controller. To totally unlock this section you need to Log-in

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