Dell Server

[Yugo]

I have 6 drives total first four in raid 10 (operating system) last two second raid 10 storage.

I pulled the last two out and replaced it with one (so now 5 drives)

I mounted it and formatted it as exfat no raid and also set this no raid in the BIOS config utility.

I did not save the previous raid from the two I removed but now I need the DATA off those drives. How can I get it? Without having to buy a sata-usb type stuff.

How can I mount them back onto the system as it was or am I screwed cause I did not save the previous config?

[the86d]

Recreate with Linux --assume-clean in the creation, maybe, so it does not write stripes just creates, and hope for the best?

Something like this:
mdadm --create /dev/md0 --assume-clean ... [Drives...] ...
This is of course hoping that the same striping is done via the BIOS as Linux Kernel RAID.

THAT is the only thing I can think of, other than next time use Linux Kernel RAID, as that will theoretically work on ANY system.

[Yugo]

Can't risk it, I will just have to go buy the usb-sata plug would I be abe to see it on the desktop or I will have to use an extraction program, do you know of any?

[nick]

I have 6 drives total first four in raid 10 (operating system) last two second raid 10 storage.

I pulled the last two out and replaced it with one (so now 5 drives)

I mounted it and formatted it as exfat no raid and also set this no raid in the BIOS config utility.

I did not save the previous raid from the two I removed but now I need the DATA off those drives. How can I get it? Without having to buy a sata-usb type stuff.

How can I mount them back onto the system as it was or am I screwed cause I did not save the previous config?

What am I missing? You said that you have the "last two drives" in RAID 10. Since RAID 10 requires the minimum of 4 drives, am I to understand that it's really just a RAID 1? And if so, you can get the data directly from one of the drives.

Alternatively, you can put them into a server and use the "Import foreign RAID config" option in the RAID controller configuration utility. That is, if you're using a Dell RAID controller, it's called differently in others, and some don't support that. So, which RAID controller do you have?

[Yugo]

What am I missing? You said that you have the "last two drives" in RAID 10. Since RAID 10 requires the minimum of 4 drives, am I to understand that it's really just a RAID 1? And if so, you can get the data directly from one of the drives.

Alternatively, you can put them into a server and use the "Import foreign RAID config" option in the RAID controller configuration utility. That is, if you're using a Dell RAID controller, it's called differently in others, and some don't support that. So, which RAID controller do you have?

Yes raid 1 im sorry made a mistake.

I just figured out the import foreign config.

Thanks guys I can now see my files.

[stonith3901]

Just FYI. There are numerous variations of the Dell PERC (poweredge raid controller). It keeps a configuration of the virtual disk on the controller card and surprisingly they are marking the physical disk with the signature as well (which is why you can import the configurations) again. It reconstructs the disk signatures and found that all members are present to possibly import a foreign configurations that the PERC wasnt aware of. We do this all the timewhen we have faulty chassis. We would pull the drives off of another server we are ready to provision, or even willing to sacrifice a server that has a role that is less important or has more redundancy than the one we need to bring online. Saves us the time of diagnosing what went wrong on a hardware level when we need to get services back from a degraded situation or bring redundancy back to a healthy state. Just make sure its same model hardware.

Glad to hear you got things working.

[Yugo]

Just FYI. There are numerous variations of the Dell PERC (poweredge raid controller). It keeps a configuration of the virtual disk on the controller card and surprisingly they are marking the physical disk with the signature as well (which is why you can import the configurations) again. It reconstructs the disk signatures and found that all members are present to possibly import a foreign configurations that the PERC wasnt aware of. We do this all the timewhen we have faulty chassis. We would pull the drives off of another server we are ready to provision, or even willing to sacrifice a server that has a role that is less important or has more redundancy than the one we need to bring online. Saves us the time of diagnosing what went wrong on a hardware level when we need to get services back from a degraded situation or bring redundancy back to a healthy state. Just make sure its same model hardware.

Glad to hear you got things working.

Thanks. Yes I actually have couple of these servers and one took a crap I pulled the drives and stuck them into another server (newer version) and it booted right up.

[stilly]

Can't risk it, I will just have to go buy the usb-sata plug would I be abe to see it on the desktop or I will have to use an extraction program, do you know of any?

If your drive shows up I would think that you could use windows explorer or any file manager to access data on it.

[spamsucker]

You're not boned on the data array as far as I can tell. You formatted the array for the OS but you broke the mirror for the data partition so in theory you still have a pristine drive with your data on it. Drop drive #6 (which hopefully you left alone and outside of the computer) into the server. Use fdisk -l to find out what device node it took and then you can mount it and get your data off of it. After that I'd recommend stepping clean away from the powerful tools.

BTW, a 2 drive RAID 10 is not a RAID 10, there's no such thing. It's called a RAID 1, that's a plain ol' mirror. A RAID 10 is a very specific mix of mirrors and striping.

[Yugo]

You're not boned on the data array as far as I can tell. You formatted the array for the OS but you broke the mirror for the data partition so in theory you still have a pristine drive with your data on it. Drop drive #6 (which hopefully you left alone and outside of the computer) into the server. Use fdisk -l to find out what device node it took and then you can mount it and get your data off of it. After that I'd recommend stepping clean away from the powerful tools.

BTW, a 2 drive RAID 10 is not a RAID 10, there's no such thing. It's called a RAID 1, that's a plain ol' mirror. A RAID 10 is a very specific mix of mirrors and striping.

Ok so I got everything working, thanks for all the help.