Hi I have windows server 2008 x64 which has mirrored disks
C drive is 68 gb (Disk 0 and 1)
D Drive is 465 gb (Disk 2 and 3)
A few days ago when the server got to the windows startup it would bluie screen and die
In the pre windows startup it gives me the choise to start in Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 Secondary Plex
The Secondary Plex option allows me to start without issues and when i look at the Disk Management i see Failed redundancy on all 4 discs
C drive shows Failed Redundancy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump) on disk 0 and 1
D Drive Shows Failed redundancy (System) on disk 2 and 3
I have done a full off line diagnostic on the HP ProLiant Server ml150 G5 and found no hardware issues at all.
In Disk Management i selected More Actions, All Tasks, Resynchronize Mirror, this does not seem to do anything at all.
Any suggestions out there?
Cheers
OneName
If the status of any volume reports Failed Redundancy, Failed Redundancy (At Risk), or just Failed, use one of the following procedures to fully recover it:
Procedure 1 —To reactivate a volume in Failed Redundancy state, try the following:
1. In the Disk Management snap-in, switch to Graphical View by selecting View O Bottom O Graphical View.
2. If a disk hosting the volume is listed in Missing, Offline, or Online (Errors) state, right-click it and select Reactivate Disk. If the reactivation succeeds, the disk returns to Online and the volume to Healthy status.
Procedure 2 — When a Failed Redundancy volume does not recover using the previous approach, try the following:
1. If the disk returned to the Online status, attempt to reactivate the volume manually. This is done using the Reactivate Volume option (although typically this should take place automatically after performing the steps in Procedure 1).
2. If the disk is still listed as Offline or Missing, then the problem is most likely related to a nonfunctioning disk or loose or failed connectors. To replace a failed mirror, right-click any of disk areas participating in the mirror, select the Remove Mirror option, and follow the wizard. Replace the bad disk and follow the instructions for creating mirrors using existing dynamic volumes provided in the section «Creating and managing RAID-1 volumes,» earlier in this chapter. To repair a RAID-5 volume, first eliminate the cause of the problem. If the disk needs to be replaced, do so, initialize it, and convert it to dynamic. Then, use the Repair Volume command from the context menu of the RAID-5 volume.
Procedure 3 — To attempt the reactivation of a volume in a Failed Redundancy (At Risk) state, try the following:
1. Try to reactivate the disk hosting the volume (typically listed with Online [Errors] status) in the same fashion as in Procedure 1. If necessary, attempt to reactivate the volume manually using Procedure 2.
2. A change of status to Failed Redundancy (without At Risk) after the first step is usually a good sign, and repeating the steps in Procedures 1 and 2 (if needed) should return the disk to Healthy status. The likely problem is that the volume data is out of sync (for a mirror) or parity information needs to be regenerated (for RAID 5). Use the Reactivate or Resynchronize commands and then run chkdsk against the volume. If this fails, you may need to replace the hardware. You will need to have a valid backup.
Procedure 4 — To replace disks, do the following:
1. If you have spare dynamic disks, import them using the Import Foreign Disk option. Otherwise, install the disks as basic and convert them to dynamic.
2. Using the methods described earlier in this chapter, return the volume to its original state.
Continue reading here: What is a backup
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I’m using Windows Server 2008 software RAID volumes. So, recently I’ve started to receive error in System event log: «The device, DeviceHarddisk7DR7, has a bad block.»
Meanwhile volume in Disk Manager is marked as «Failed Redundancy». I could command to «Reactivate Volume» and it’s starts to re-sync, but after a while it stops and returns to previous state.
chkdsk on failed disk do not help. What can I do besides removing, reformatting and restoring from backup? Thank you.
Update When I just offline one of the disks (#7 for instance), «Failed Redundancy» label mutates to «Failed», so removing disk and replacing it with empty one, I thing will not save the volume.
asked Nov 1, 2009 at 18:12
You need to replace the drive with the bad block. Each time you try reconstruct the array if will fail once it hits that block.
You should not need to fully reformat though — you should be able to remove the failed drive, replace it, partition it as needed and rebuild the array (unless, of course, the array is RAID0 rather than RAID1, RAID5 or similar).
I’ve not done any of the above with Windows’ software RAID, so someone else will have to help you there if the place to issue the relevant commands are not obvious. To help them help you, it would be a good idea to add your current disk layout in your question.
answered Nov 1, 2009 at 18:42
6
If the volume you back up to is the one with the defective drive you need to make a backup to something else, at least temporarily. Regardless, you have to replace the bad drive. It really is that simple.
I also suggest you reconsider your backup strategy. A proper backup is something that will allow you to restore your data even if all your current systems are destroyed. What you have isn’t a backup, it’s merely a second copy.
I would add to the comments made by Evan and others regarding testing your backups. In addition to regular test restores you need to know that you can restore that data to a system other then the one you backed up. If the crunch comes and you need to do a disaster recovery you may have to do so using completely different hardware. Unless this can be done the business is vulnerable.
answered Nov 6, 2009 at 23:44
John GardeniersJohn Gardeniers
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I’d like to summarize my experience here.
When Windows Server (actual for 2008 R2) software RAID5 array is in «Resyncing» state it is as vulnerable to disk failure as striped volume. So you have two options:
- do not use Windows software RAID5,
- do not permit it to enter «Resyncing» state (e.g. use UPS).
Again. If one of volume drives fail during resyncing you are pretty much screwed up. All you could do is create volume again, run chkdsk on it and restore data from backup.
answered Jun 4, 2011 at 19:21
Ok, so I finally got my server up and running, but I am having problems with my RAID.
I have 6x 2TB hdds attached to the system in non-raid (AHCI) mode. I would RAID them on the motherboard, but it does not support RAID-5. So I have gone into Windows Disk Management and setup the 6 drives as dynamic disks and put them in a RAID-5. It took
nearly 24 hours to «resync» but then shows healthy.
But here’s the problem: Any time the computer restarts, whether it be from a power failure, manual restart, or even a scheduled restart for updates, the volume goes to a «failed redundancy» mode, and I must
manually go into disk management and bring the volume back online (which takes another 24 hours), but returns to healthy everytime.
Now, I was previously using Windows RAID 1 with these disks on Windows 7 before upgrading to WHS2011. The only time it when to a failed redundancy mode was if there was a power failure. And if it happened, it would automatically begin resync as soon as Windows
7 started again.
So my question is, is the software RAID in WHS2011 supposed to fail redundancy everytime the computer restarts? It doesn’t sound like normal behavior to me. It wouldn’t be a big deal if it would at least automatically start a resync when booted up.
Any input in this issue would be appreciated. Thanks.
Hi guys,
I have a ProLiant DL380e Gen8 server connected to a SuperMicro JBOD for xtra external using as LSI SAS-9217-414e. It is setup as Raid 5 via the Proliant.
Iver recently seen disk erros in event viewer.
The device, DeviceHarddisk14DR16, has a bad block
The device, DeviceHarddisk14DR14, has a bad block.
I ran chkdsk over the weekend on the volume :
Chkdsk was executed in read/write mode.
Checking file system on J:
Volume label is JBOD Archive.
CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)…
3410432 file records processed. File verification completed.
16 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 0 EA records processed. 0 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)…
4421890 index entries processed. Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)…
3410432 file SDs/SIDs processed. Cleaning up 2 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 2 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 2 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
505729 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)…
3410416 files processed. File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)…
2294894362 free clusters processed. Free space verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.
41968497 MB total disk space.
6100747 MB in 2904616 files.
6462032 KB in 505731 indexes.
3804767 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
35857724 MB available on disk.
16384 bytes in each allocation unit.
2685983871 total allocation units on disk.
2294894362 allocation units available on disk.
Here is a screen shot of Disk management :
I’m unsure as to how to troubleshoot further or if im looking at 2 drives failing ??
Any help / advice greatly appreciated.
Tony