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Replace Raid 1 hdd

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cellspam

ISP
Jun 28, 2008
114
AR
Hi all,

I have the next question i hope i can explain and some one can help me.
I have a Raid 1 os 2003 ibm 3650

I have to make a critical update to my system and my idea was to swap off the secondary hdd so i can have a backup untill here i dont have issues my real problem is. if the hdd 0 crashes or the update wont work i need to swap on the hdd i swap off before i did the updagre. how can i configure the raid to make that the hdd 1 replace the info on the hdd 0?

Please help.
thanks
 
Take a Ghost image (or similar) of the entire drive and store it on another (external maybe) hard drive until the update is done. I wouldn't fool around with removing hard drives, etc. That could potentially cause you more pain than the update.
 
Goombawaho,

I tryed to make a ghost to and usb hdd drive with ghost v.11 but i cant make the ghost see the usb hdd hard drive.

Thanks
 
No need to create an image....
The hard drive you pulled is an image. If there is an issue with an update/upgrade, shutdown remove the hard drive which is having an issue, replace with the "pulled" drive. Start up the server into the OS as a test, shutdown, place the drive which had the issue back in the other slot, startup, go immediately into the raid bios, fail the drive with the issue, shutdown, restart, go into raid bios, place the drive online, restart, and the array should rebuild. This may be more steps then needed, but thats the way I used to recover with a pulled raid 1 drive. You might get a error about the drive (update/backup issue drive) being foreign. If so make sure it is that drive you select in the raid bios , and delete the foreign drive in the bios; you may have a bios choice to "blink" the drive LED, which removes doubt as to the drive in question.
I have a number of clients whereby I "pull" a raid 1 drive in case an update/upgrade/virus causes the OS to go south. Also useful on small AD network (with few changes), good until the tombstone expires. With AD and multiple DC, one would have to reverse replication if a "pulled" drive is used to restore a server.
Ps There is no such thing in hardware raid 1 as a primary or secondary drive, either drive can be pulled, both are equal. The only difference is a controller will favor which drive is written to first, which could be either drive, which happens during initial setup.
The main thing to remember with any raid, as long as you do NOT initialize, you array remain intact



........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial
 
Technome,

Thanks for you help really need it,, one more question is there any pdf, doc or something to read about all the steps you are telling me?

Regards
 
Not that I know of... I just search google as raid 1 recovery and raid 1 restore, found no PDFs. I am sure someone has posted one but I did not get a hit. Also searched Lsilogic's site, no hits..shame the raid industry does not release all their documentation.

This is a longer version of my post


Perhaps you would feel more comfortable imaging to another drive as mentioned above. I do this with raid 5 all the time, same can be done with raid 1. Since your USB does not work, hang a cheap SATA drive off the SATA interface, clone the raid 1 to it with Acronis, Symantec ghost etc. Test the SATA clone will fully boot, then set the boot priority back to the raid 1 and proceed with patch/upgrade. If something goes south on the raid 1 after the changes, you would then reverse clone from the SATA to the raid 1. Again make sure the cloned SATA boots into Windows, as I had an associate omit the step and ended up with a disaster, caused by chkdsk errors on the original raid volume... run chkdsk before imaging.


........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial
 
Hi,
Today i was making some tests with an IBM 3550 and i tryed this.
I installed the OS 2003 on a Raid 1. (slot 0 and 1)
After making the install and changes i remove hdd on slot 1,
i did some update and did to make a roll back. but i can make that the hdd 1 (slot 1) override the info to the slot 0.

any idea?
Reagards
 
Turn off machine, place both drives in, go into raid bios fail slot 0 drive, reboot into windows as a test (redundancy error should occur). Restart, place slot 0 online, reboot. If foreign config error comes up for slot 0, delete it.



........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial
 
technome,

I did what you said but still cant make that the hdd on slot 1 over rights the info to the slot 0.

thanks
 
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