r710 with 6 SAS drives - Fedora LInux 39 - Does not recognize replacement drive

have you created hardware RAID or how you are using it ?

Hi,

You might want to check for compatibility issue and also if RAID has been configured on the drive for the OS to detect. Can you provide me the drive DPN# for me to check if it is compatible with the server.

I purchased 12 SAS drives and an r710 without hardware raid. I installed 6 drives and installed the OS on the first drive and software read on the remaining 5. I would like to replace one of those 5 due to reported errors. I expected if I stopped raid and rebooted the boot process would boot into the first drive and recognize the remaining 5. It did not. It recognizes the 4 original disks. It does not allow any activity on the replacement. Neither fdisk nor sfdisk work, they can't read the drive. I have tried this with 4 drives. It is unlikely the first 6 of 12 were good and the next 4 bad. I have not tried dd, however with fdisk failing I did not see much purpose. smartclt -a does work. Is there any kind of security bios lockout?

Hi,

I'm sorry, but correct me, you mentioned you purchased the server without RAID, but you also mentioned if you stopped RAID and reboot. Are you using OS RAID? We are not familiar with OS RAID disk replacement procedures. 

I'm not able to understand the procedure that you did. 1 out of 5 disk need to be replaced, let's say HD0 is your OS and HD1 to HD5 are the remaining. HD1 reported errors, and you would like to replace HD1. After replacing HD1, the server only recognizes HD2 to HD5 only? 

Can you check in BIOS if the disk are detected by the server? How are the disk connected to the mainboard? Can you let us know in BIOS, what is the SATA setting? Are the SAS drives Dell certified drives? You may be facing incompatibility issue, although yes, initial first few drives are detected. These are issues that some can face when using non-Dell drives. 

Ah. The server does not have hardware raid. I configured Linux mdadm software raid.

The BIOS recognition of the drives is different with the replacement disk. During the boot process the BIOS recognizes the disk type and identification. It also reports 2 sizes. The first column is reported accurately. However on the replacement disk the second reported size is missing. This is generated by the BIOS. Something about the replacement is different as identified by the BIOS.

I am trying to determine if there is a security feature in the BIOS that is preventing identification during startup or if the disk is wiped to some low level I am not familiar with and needs a low level format of some kind. 

Hello,

If a drive is reporting no capacity then it is likely a failed drive.

Have you tried swapping the drive with another slot to see if it is detected in another slot and try a known good in this slot and see if it is detected?

Like Joey mention, we're not familiar with that OS and it hasn't been validated by Dell.

Also as mentioned it could be incompatible non-Dell hard drive.

How are you connecting the drives?

What is the controller you are using connecting to the backplane?

If you like to post a picture of the hard drive label showing the Dell part number (DP/N) I can check if it is valid for the R710.

You may also like to review

R710 Owner manual

Troubleshooting a Hard Drive and Troubleshooting a Storage Controller

166-169

https://dell.to/3JE0aJM