Failed Virtual Disk - Physical Disk Failure

What Caused the Problem?

One or more physical disks in a disk group have failed or been removed, causing the associated virtual disks to fail. 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. Touching components without using a proper ground may damage the equipment.

Important Notes

If the virtual disk is marked Failed because you replaced the wrong physical disk during a Degraded virtual disk recovery procedure, you have not lost data. To return the virtual disk to the Degraded state, reinsert the physical disk.
You may be able to recover data from a failed virtual disk. Whether this is possible depends on how the failure occurred. You can use this procedure to restore data in two ways: contacting your technical support representative to attempt a data recovery, or restoring data from backup media.
Multiple physical disk failures or removals in a RAID level 1, 5, 6, or 10 can cause a failed virtual disk status. However, a Degraded RAID 10 may have more than one failed physical disk if the failed physical disks belong to different mirrored pairs. A Degraded RAID 6 may also have up to two failed physical disks.
If the physical disks are configured for RAID 0, any physical disk failure or removal will result in a failed virtual disk.
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 your 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.
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

If...	Then...
You have mistakenly removed the wrong physical disk while performing a Degraded virtual disk recovery procedure	Go to step 2.
You have a backup of the data on the failed virtual disk	Go to step 3.
You do NOT have a backup of the data on the failed virtual disk	It may be possible to recover data from the failed virtual disks. If you wish to attempt a data recovery, you must contact your technical support representative. Do NOT perform steps 2 through 6. Performing any recovery actions before contacting your technical support representative could jeopardize any chance of recovering data.

If you have mistakenly removed the wrong physical disk while performing a Degraded virtual disk recovery procedure, you can return the virtual disk back to the Degraded state by replacing the physical disk you removed. After the virtual disks return to the Degraded state, click the Recheck button and perform the recovery procedure listed for a degraded virtual disk. You are finished with this procedure.

From the Summary tab, click the Disk groups and virtual disks link and find the affected disk group (as listed in the Recovery Guru details area).

There are several different types of virtual disks that can exist in a disk group. Use the information provided to determine the types of virtual disks on the affected disk group. Step through every entry in the following table and perform all procedures associated with the virtual disk type combination for the affected disk group.

If...

Then...

The affected disk group contains one or more source or target virtual disks in a copy operation

a	Click the Modify tab.
b	Click the Manage virtual disk copies link.
c	Select the copy pair that contains the affected virtual disk.
d	Click the Stop button.
e	Check to see if any of the Target virtual disks have read-only enabled. Disable read-only by selecting ALL target virtual disks that have read-only enabled and then clicking Permissions.

One or more snapshot virtual disks exist on the failed disk group

The information on the snapshot(s) is no longer valid and cannot be retrieved. You must delete all snapshot virtual disks associated with the failed disk group.

a	Click the Modify tab.
b	Click the Delete virtual disk link.
c	Select a snapshot virtual disk associated with the failed disk group.
d	Click the OK button. Note: You will be able to create any needed snapshot virtual disks after this procedure has been completed.
e	Repeat steps c and d for each additional snapshot virtual disk associated with the failed disk group until all are deleted.

One or more snapshot repository virtual disks exist on the failed disk group

The information on the snapshot virtual disks associated with the affected snapshot repository virtual disks is no longer valid and cannot be retrieved, even if the associated snapshot virtual disks exist on a different disk group.

a	Click the Modify tab.
b	Click the Delete virtual disk link.
c	Select a snapshot virtual disk associated with the snapshot repositories on the failed disk group.
d	Click the OK button. Note: You will be able to create any needed snapshot virtual disks after this procedure has been completed.
e	Repeat steps c and d for each additional snapshot virtual disk associated with the snapshot repositories on the failed disk group until all are deleted.

Only standard virtual disks exist on the affected disk group

Go to step 4.

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.

If...	Then...
You want to replace the failed physical disk with a new physical disk	Remove the physical disk Repeat above step to remove all failed physical disks in the disk group Wait 30 seconds, and then insert the new physical disks. Note:Wait until the replaced physical disks are ready (status LED off) before proceeding to step 6
You want to utilize an existing unassigned physical disk or the in-use hot spare to replace the failed disk in the disk group	Click on the Modify tab and then select Replace Physical Disks. Under Failed and Missing Physical Disks, select the physical disk that you would like to replace Under Available replacement physical disks, select the physical disk that you would like to use to replace the failed or missing physical disk Click on Replace Physical Disk. Note: If you choose the Hot Spare as a replacement for the failed or missing physical disk, the Hot Spare role will be changed to Assigned. A new Hot Spare would need to be assigned if that functionality is desired Repeat above steps for each failed physical disk before proceeding with step 6

a	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.
b	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 .
c	Repeat step b for each virtual disk in the disk group.
d	Save this procedure by clicking the Save As button because once you perform step 7 and the failure is fixed, you will not be able to access the information in step 8 from the Recovery Guru. Go to step 7.

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

If...

Then...

You deleted one or more snapshot virtual disks or snapshot repository virtual disks in step 3.

If needed, create new snapshot virtual disks to replace those you deleted.

You stopped one or more copy operations in step 3.

If desired, re-create any copies you stopped:

a	Click the Modify tab.
b	Click the Manage virtual disk copies link.
c	Select the copy pair to re-copy.
d	Click the Re-Copy button.
e	Repeat steps c and d for each additional copy pair you stopped in step 3.

You disabled Read-Only on any target virtual disks in step 3.

Restore the data on those virtual disks from backup.

One or more virtual disks were initialized in step 6.

Add the initialized virtual disks in the affected disk group back 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 initialized virtual disks from backup.

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.