On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:23:40 +0800, Zhang Weiwu
wrote:


Hello. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask my question about
a Dell PowerEdge 2300 server's raid problem. If I'm in the wrong place
please let me know.

I am the new administrator. On the server there ware two 9GB IBM SCSI
harddisk in RAID. When I touch the server the RAID card is already lost
(I cannot reach the old admin), I don't even know what kind of RAID and
what module of RAID card it was running. Now people want me to recover
the data in the two harddisk.

I tried to plug the two harddisk on a Dell PowerEdge 6400 server. I can
see these disks in Raid Setup, but I don't want to try doing silly
things like wiping the disk out by mistake.

Can you point me what to do now? I'm not familiar with RAID things.
Acutally I'm a bit newbie on it.

Thank you. And I really appreciate your help.

Do not configure through the RAID setup yet, see if by booting the system,
you have access to the data. I'll assume no access but you didn't come
right out and write that.

The RAID configuration info is written to the disks. You should NOT
configure them with another RAID (card). Try to find same card it was
previously using, even same bios version if possible, if that info can be
found... perhaps a sticker on the card's EEPROM or notes... if all else
fails you might assume based on purchase date, or contact card
manufacturer and inquire based on markings on the card... likely the bios
wasn't updated unless there was specific need to do so. If the prior
admin was responsible, s/he should have written the bios version on the
card IF it had been changed... thinking in a perfect world perhaps, but
it's worth a look.

With the correct card, the drives should remain in their correct RAID
configuration.

Although, a situation like (data lost, card dead, admin MIA) smells
funny... it could be that the data is gone, sabotaged.