UC Hard-drive failed (CUCM.UCCX,Unity.CUOM) Datastore disappear in Esxi 5.1

[AHMED ALANSARI]

Hello,

I have a datastore disappeared in Virtual machine Vsphere Esxi5.1, for UC .

and i have a Two hard drives flashes orange and appeared in status (Failed).

The strange thing is all VM's are pingable but i cannot console(SSH) them with error ( Unable to connect to the MKS:Virtual machine config file doesnt exist ).

When i checked My USC-C210-M2 server i saw that i have to RAID 0 is optimal and 5 is offline (attached).

Cisco has been sent me Two Hard-drive(A03-D300GA2) 300G but the failed one is 146G.

The question is:

1- Can i replace 146G HDD by 300G HDD (The that sent by cisco) without a broblem?

2-Do i have to replace LSI 6G MegaRAID Card and how to make sure if i need to replace it or not?

3-What is the correct procedure for replacement ?( Excusme,I am a new on this)

4-What about my VM's How to restore it?Note that I have a backup for the Datastore in my PC.

Please Help

Ahmed

Attachment: 

imc-storage.png

[Keny Perez]

Hi,

It looks like HDD 8 & 9 are part of a RAID 5 array and they both are showing as "failed"; that might be the reason for the datastore being gone, as RAID 5 only tolerates one disk failure.

1-You wont have a problem as long as the new disk is "bigger", is just that the extra storage wont be used and if I remember correctly, the 146GB is already EoS and the 300GB is the official replacement part.

2-Log analysis will be needed to see if the RAID controller is bad... 95% of the time, a disk failure is not caused by a faulty RAID controller

3-Disks are hot swappable so you should be able to just take out the old one and pop in the new one (as far as your RAID level supports a disk failure - RAID 0 is the only one that has zero tolerance)

4-I would go to the datastore, right-click on the vmdk and choose add to inventory; the system may ask you if you copied or moved the VM... here is reference on what to choose if that were to happen: http://techhead.co/vmware-esx-i-moved-it-or-i-copied-it-whats-the-difference/ 

HTH,

-Kenny

[AHMED ALANSARI]

Hi Kenny 

Thanks for your response,

- yes HDD 8,9 in RAID 5 array

- One of my colleagues has reinserted the faulty HDD's physically ane reboot th CIMC and the the stats of physicalDraive changed to ( Uncofigured good) and for Virtual drive to(Missing) ..What should i do to solve this.?

-Raid 5 still offline.

-For VM backup ( i had taken a backup since one year ago for the UC App datastore by copy pasting the folders with the same ordered and names.

thanks 

Ahmed

[Keny Perez]

2 failed disk in RAID 5 means data loss as it doesnt tolerate it, even if you recover the RAID you may have data loss.

Let me know if you have other questions.

-Kenny

[AHMED ALANSARI]

I hope i can recover my Data,

please can you guide me how i can get my 2 HDD back and RAID 5 online??what is the steps and from where chould i start?

thanks

Ahmed

[Keny Perez]

Oh, there are companies that will recover your data but I cant say that is cheap...

Replace the disks if they need replacement (generally "media errors" or "predicitive failures" will require a replacement) then create a new array (this will wipe out your data - BE CAREFUL if you want to recover your data- and generally data recovery companies recommend to leave the disk(s) alone so they can do their job).

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-c-series-rack-servers/whitepaper_c07-732029.html  <<< look at "Changing the RAID Level with the WebBIOS Utility"  (the section "Creating Virtual Drives from Unused Physical Disks" only applies to servers that support CIMC 1.5 and later and the C210-M2s dont support it)

Hope that helps,

-Kenny