Failed Virtual Disk - Physical Disk Failure

What Caused the Problem?

One or more physical disks in the disk group have failed, 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 either (1) the Service action (removal) allowed (SAA) field in the Details area of this recovery procedure is NO (), or (2) the SAA LED on the affected component is OFF (note that some products do not have SAA LEDs). Removing a component while its SAA LED is OFF may result in temporary loss of access to your data. Refer to the following Important Notes 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 or not 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.
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 operating system documentation for any special requirements concerning failed physical disks and perform them where necessary.
Make sure the replacement physical disks have a capacity equal to or greater than the failed physical disks you will remove in the following steps.
You can replace the failed physical disks while other disk groups in the storage array are receiving I/O.
Service Action Allowed Important Information:
- The Service action (removal) allowed field in the Details area indicates whether or not you can safely remove the component. If the SAA field is NO (), then the affected component must remain in place until you service another component first.
- The Service action LED on Component field in the Details area indicates whether or not a physical SAA LED is present on the hardware component. This field does NOT indicate whether the LED is ON or OFF (that indication is provided by the Service action (removal) allowed field).
- If a component does not have an SAA LED, then it is OK to remove the component when its fault LED is lit and the Service action (removal) allowed field = YES () in the Details area.
- The Service action (removal) allowed field shown in the Details area and the physical SAA LED on the hardware component (if supported) MUST match before you remove the affected component. In rare cases (such as multiple problems), the status of the LED and the SAA field may not match. If there is a mismatch, then you should NOT remove the component until these indications match.

Recovery Steps

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 - 8. Performing any recovery actions before contacting your technical support representative could jeopardize any chance of recovering data. If you prefer to recover from an existing backup or you have mistakenly removed the wrong physical disk while performing a degraded virtual disk recovery procedure, go to step 2.

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.

There are several different types of virtual disks that can exist in a disk group. Use the Recovery Guru details area to determine the affected disk group. Then, find the disk group in the Logical View of the Array Management Window (AMW). Use the information provided by the AMW 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	Go to the Copy Manager by selecting Virtual Disk >> Copy >> Copy Manager. Check to see if any of the copy operations involving the affected virtual disks have a copy status of Pending, In Progress, or Failed. Highlight the copy pair that contains the affected virtual disk and select Copy >> Stop. 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 selecting Change >> Target Virtual Disk Permissions >> Disable Read-Only.
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. Delete all snapshot virtual disks associated with the failed disk group by highlighting the snapshot virtual disk and selecting Virtual Disk >> Delete. You will be able to create any needed snapshot virtual disks after this procedure has been completed.
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. Delete all snapshot virtual disks associated with the snapshot repositories on the failed disk group by highlighting the associated snapshot virtual disks and selecting Virtual Disk >> Delete. You will be able to create any needed snapshots after this procedure has been completed.
The mirror repository virtual disks exist on the affected disk group	Save the Storage Array Profile by using the Storage Array >> View >> Profile option and then selecting the Save As button. The profile will give you a roadmap of any mirror relationships you may want to recreate after re-activating Remote Virtual Disk Mirroring. Remove all mirror relationships on this storage array by highlighting any primary virtual disk and selecting Virtual Disk >> Remote Virtual Disk Mirroring >> Remove Mirror Relationship... You can then select all mirror relationships on the storage array. Deactivate the Remote Virtual Disk Mirroring premium feature by selecting Storage Array >> Remote Virtual Disk Mirroring >> Deactivate... Re-activate the Remote Virtual Disk Mirroring premium feature by selecting Storage Array >> Remote Virtual Disk Mirroring >> Activate... Your Mirror Repository virtual disks will now reside on a different disk group. Once the failed disk group is restored, step 6 will help you restore your mirror relationships.
One or more Remote Virtual Disk Mirroring primary or secondary virtual disks exist on the affected disk group, but the Mirror Repository virtual disks exist on a different disk group	Save the Storage Array Profile by using the Storage Array >> View >> Profile option and then selecting the Save As button. The profile will give you a roadmap of any mirror relationships you may want to recreate after re-activating Remote Virtual Disk Mirroring. Remove the mirror relationships for only those primary or secondary virtual disks on the affected disk group by highlighting any of the affected primary virtual disks and selecting Virtual Disk >> Remote Virtual Disk Mirroring >> Remove Mirror Relationship... You can then select only those mirror relationships that exist on the affected disk group. Once the failed disk group is restored, step 9 will help you restore your mirror relationships for the virtual disks on the affected disk group. The mirror relationships that use secondary virtual disks on the affected disk group will synchronize automatically once the failed disk group is restored. Go to step 4.
Only standard virtual disks exist on the affected disk group	Go to step 4.

Blink all failed physical disks associated with this disk group (the fault indicator lights on the failed physical disks should be lit). To determine the associated physical disks, select one of the affected virtual disks, listed in the Recovery Guru Details area, in the Logical View of the Array Management Window. Each associated physical disk will have an association dot underneath it.

Remove each physical disk until you have removed all of the physical disks associated with this disk group, and then go to step 6.

Wait 30 seconds, then insert the new physical disks. The fault indicator light on the replaced physical disks may be lit for a short time (one minute or less).

Note: Wait until the replaced physical disks are ready (fault indicator light off) before going to step 7.

Save this procedure by selecting Save As because once you perform step 8 and the failure is fixed, you will not be able to access the information in step 9 from the Recovery Guru.

Select the disk group in the Logical View of the Array Management Window; then, select Advanced >> Recovery >> Initialize >> Disk Group.

Result: The virtual disks in the disk group are initialized, one at a time. When initialization starts on a virtual disk, the icon changes to Operation in Progress . When initialization is completed, all virtual disks in the disk group are Optimal .

Note: To monitor initialization progress, select the virtual disk. Then, select Virtual Disk >> Properties. Note that once the operation in progress has completed, the progress bar is no longer displayed in the Properties dialog.

Go to step 8.

Click the Recheck button to rerun the Recovery Guru. The failure should no longer appear in the Summary area. If the failure appears again, contact your technical support representative, otherwise, go to step 9.

If...	Then...
You deleted one or more snapshot virtual disks or snapshot repository virtual disks in step 3.	If desired, 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 by highlighting the copy pairs in the Copy Manager and selecting Copy >> Re-Copy.
You disabled read-only on any target virtual disks in step 3.	Restore that data on those virtual disks from backup.
You removed mirror relationships during step 3	Re-create any desired mirror relationships by selecting any virtual disk you wish to be a primary (note that some of these virtual disks may reside on remote storage arrays) and selecting Virtual Disk >> Remote Virtual Disk Mirroring >> Create...
One or more virtual disks were initialized in step 8.	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.