PowerEdge R620, disk has status 'Foreign', how to replace?

Question

Good day!

I have a PowerEdge R620 server with a PERC H710P Mini (Embedded) RAID controller.

Recently, in the OMSA, one of 8 physical disks (in total I have two virtual disks RAID-10 with 4 physical disks in each) has a state "Foreign", and the virtual disk 0, in which it is included (Span 0), has state "Degraded" and Physical Disk (ST91000640SS) is not displayed in Span 0.

Virtual disk 0 is the system disk and the system is currently fully operational.

Please describe the step-by-step instructions for replacing the disk and possible problems.

Does the new disc have to be completely identical (ST91000640SS is difficult to buy now)?

soulriwer · Answer

Can I replace a failed disk ST91000640SS with a newer model of the same size, for example SEAGATE Exos ST1000NX0333, 1TB, HDD, SAS 3.0, 2.5 '? Could there be compatibility problems?

Dell-DylanJ · Answer

Problems do have the possibility of arising, yes, but I'm fairly sure that I'v seen this drive model used without issue. If this is a drive with a Dell part number listed on it, I'd be happy to check on compatibility for you. If not, the possibility does exist that it won't work. However, it may still run perfectly fine. For example, my R710 had unvalidated drives in it and it ran fine for a few years. I sold it and it was still working properly on those drives.

INSP_5548 · Answer

You can reboot the server. Pay close attention to the prompts at the booting.

Press CNTRL+R when prompted. It will log you in to the RAID controller utility. You may have to select the controller in case you have more than one controller.

Press CNTRL+N few times till you reach "Foreign View" tab.

Select the controller and press F2-->Foreign Config-->Clear Config-->Confirm by pressing Yes.

Press CNTRL+N till you reach Physical Disks.

You disk status should have changed from Foreign to Ready.

Select the disk and press F2-->Set As Global Spare.

Now your Disk status should show rebuilding.

At this time, you can safely exit from RAID utility and boot into the OS while controller is rebuilding the disk.

You can login to OMSA to monitor the rebuild status.

You new disk need not to be identical.

soulriwer · Answer

Hello, Thanks for the help! I replaced the damaged disc with a similar ST91000640SS disc, but without DELL marking. Rebuilding has started automatically and is currently finished, the virtual disk is in the Ready state. I am confused by the fact that the physical disk has the status Not critical. Is it just because his Vendor ID is different from DELL? How can I check this?

LexxR · Answer

@soulriwer

Need to edit the ini file to remove the warning of non dell disk been used

stsvc.ini file located in either the C:\Program Files\Dell\SysMgt\sm or the C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\SysMgt\sm

NonDellCertifiedFlag=yes (change it to a no)

Restart server and no more not important warnings

As long as the disk was empty (diskpart and use clean command, deleteing partitions is not enough if the disk has been used before) you should have been able to just plug in the new disk and auto rebuild should have kicked in (rebooting a server in an degraded raid state is not recommended)

DELL-Charles R · Answer

Hello soulriwer,

The message display if there was a discrepancy with the configuration the controller has and the disks have. It may have come from the drive you replaced.

Does it give this prompt on every reboot?
If it does you may want to review the controller log for any issues.

Please let me know how a reboot goes.

soulriwer · Answer

Thanks everyone for the help!

There is one more problem - after replacing the disk, I rebooted the server for the first time and received the following message from the RAID controller

"Some configured disks have been removed from your system, or are no longer accessible. Please check your cables and also ensure all disks are present. Press any key to continue, or 'C' to load the configuration utility.

Entering the configuration utility in this state will result in drive configuration changes. Press 'Y' to continue loading the configuration utility or please power off your system and check your cables to ensure all disks are present and reboot."

I pressed the Enter key and the server booted normally, the state of both virtual disks is Ready (in OMSA)

What caused this message and how to remove it so that the server starts automatically without pressing a key?

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

PowerEdge R620, disk has status "Foreign", how to replace?

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