Failed Virtual Disk - During Modification

What Caused the Problem?

One or more physical disks have failed in a disk group causing the modification operation (for example, adding capacity) to be suspended. The Recovery Guru Details area provides specific information you will need as you follow the Recovery Steps.

Caution: Possible loss of data accessibility. Do not remove a component when the Service Action Allowed field in the Details area of this recovery procedure is NO. Removing a component while its Service Action Allowed field is NO may result in temporary loss of access to your data. Refer to the following Important Notes and the Recovery Steps for more detail.

Caution: Electrostatic discharge can damage sensitive components. Always use proper antistatic protection when handling components. Touch components without using a proper ground may damage the equipment.

Important Notes

You may be able to recover data from a failed virtual disk. Whether this is possible depends on how the failure occurred. The Dell recommended path for data restore is via backup.
All I/O to the affected virtual disks will fail.
To the operating system (OS), a failed virtual disk is exactly the same as a failed non-RAID physical disk. Refer to the OS documentation for any special requirements concerning failed physical disks and perform them where necessary.
Make sure the replacement physical disks are the same type and have a capacity equal to or greater than the failed physical disks you will remove in the Recovery Steps.
You can replace the failed physical disks while other disk groups in the storage array are receiving I/O.
Unlike a typical virtual disk failure, you can not re-initialize the virtual disks while the modification operation is suspended.
The Recovery Steps below may require you to execute commands from a Command Line Interface (CLI). You should familiarize yourself with the basic usage of the CLI by reading your CLI documentation before proceeding.
The Service Action Allowed field in the Details area indicates whether you can safely remove the component. If the Service Action Allowed field is NO, then the affected component must remain in place until you service another component first.

Recovery Steps

It may be possible to recover data from the failed virtual disks.

If...

Then...

You wish to attempt a data recovery

Important: Performing any recovery actions before contacting your technical support representative could jeopardize any chance of recovering data.

a	From the Support tab, click the Gather support information link.
b	In the Specify file field, enter a name for the file to be saved or browse to a previously saved file if you want to overwrite an existing file. Use the convention "filename.zip" for the name of the file. (The suffix .zip will be added to the file automatically if you do not specify one.) You may also specify another physical disk and directory if you want to save the file in a location other than the default.
c	Click the Start button.
d	Contact your technical support representative and indicate that a "Failed Virtual Disk - During Modification" problem is being reported. Send your representative the file you just saved. Do NOT perform any of the remaining Recovery Steps.

You prefer to recover from an existing backup

The procedure for recovering from an existing backup in this scenario is for advanced users only.

If...

Then...

You want to continue with the advanced recovery procedure

Go to step 2.

You need assistance with the recovery procedure

a	From the Support tab, click the Gather support information link.
b	In the Specify file field, enter a name for the file to be saved or browse to a previously saved file if you want to overwrite an existing file. Use the convention "filename.zip" for the name of the file. (The suffix .zip will be added to the file automatically if you do not specify one.) You may also specify another physical disk and directory if you want to save the file in a location other than the default.
c	Click the Start button.
d	Contact your technical support representative and indicate that a "Failed Virtual Disk - During Modification" problem is being reported. Send your representative the file you just saved. Do NOT perform any of the remaining Recovery Steps.

Note: If you have snapshot virtual disks associated with the affected disk group, these snapshot virtual disks will no longer be valid.

From the Modify tab, click the Delete virtual disk link.

Delete all snapshot virtual disks associated with the affected disk group.

Locate all failed physical disks associated with this disk group (the status LEDs on the failed physical disks may be amber flashing).

From the Support tab, click the View storage array profile link, and then click the Disk Groups tab. Scroll down to one of the affected disk groups as listed in the Recovery Guru Details area. Each associated physical disk will be listed underneath the disk group.

For each individual physical disk listed, check the Service Action Allowed status in the Details area.

If...

Then...

Service Action Allowed is YES

Go to step 5.

Service Action Allowed is NO

Answer the following question:

Are there other problems being reported in the Summary area?

Yes - Fix these problems first and then return to this procedure after clicking the Recheck button.
No - Stop this procedure and contact your technical support representative.

Remove the physical disk.

Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you have removed all of the failed physical disks associated with this disk group, and then go to step 6.

Wait 30 seconds, and then insert the new physical disks.

Note: Wait until the replaced physical disks are ready (status LED is steady green) before going to step 7.

Perform the following steps on each replaced physical disk to transition the virtual disk to a degraded state:

Open a Command Prompt, and type the following command:

SMcli -n <storageArray_name>;

where storageArray_name is the name of the storage array listed in the Details area.

Note: If you receive an error from this command, change your working directory to the directory that contains the SMcli executable.

Execute the following command in order to fail the physical disk:

set physicalDisk [enclosure_ID,slot_ID] operationalState=failed;

where enclosure_id is the enclosure ID for the enclosure where the physical disk resides and slot_ID is the slot position within the enclosure.

Note: The commands above are case-sensitive, and must be entered exactly as shown.

Execute the following command in order to revive the physical disk:

revive physicalDisk [enclosure_ID,slot_ID];

where enclosure_id is the enclosure ID for the enclosure where the physical disk resides and slot_ID is the slot position within the enclosure.

Wait one minute for the replaced physical disk to become operational.

From the Summary tab in the storage management software, click the Disk Groups and Virtual Disks link.

If...	Then...
The virtual disk does not transition to a degraded state	Continue reviving replaced physical disks using steps a through c.
The virtual disk transitions to a degraded state	The suspended modification operation will resume. After the modification completes, a rebuild will start. Depending on the size of the virtual disks, these operations may take a long time. During these operations, virtual disks display an Operation in Progress icon. Allow the operations to finish before going to step 8.

Caution: Data Loss. Even though a rebuild operation has completed on the virtual disks, the data is still unusable. You must re-initialize them using the following step. Re-initializing will destroy all data on the virtual disk.

Execute the following command in order to initialize a virtual disk in the disk group:

start virtualDisk [virtualDiskName] initialize;

where virtualDiskName is a virtual disk in the disk group you wish to initialize.

Note: When initialization starts on a virtual disk, the icon changes to Operation in Progress in the Disk Groups and Virtual Disks dialog. When initialization is completed, the virtual disk becomes Optimal.

Repeat step a for each virtual disk in the disk group.

Save this procedure by clicking the Save As button because once you perform step 9 and the failure is fixed, you will not be able to access the information in steps 10 through 12 from the Recovery Guru.

Go to step 9.

Click the Recheck button to rerun the Recovery Guru. The failure should no longer appear in the Summary area.

If desired, create any snapshots that you deleted in step 2.

Add the re-initialized virtual disks to the operating system. You may need to reboot the system to see the virtual disks.

Note: Do not start I/O to these virtual disks until after you restore from backup.

Restore the data for the re-initialized virtual disks from backup media.

Note: Additional information on this issue may be available. Please visit the Dell support website at support.dell.com and select your product model. Choose "troubleshooting" as your tool option, then search by this procedure title.