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I was tasked to do some rearranging on my company's HP Proliant storage server. In the p800 configuration utility I managed to delete the wrong logical disk, which was a 10 disk RAID 6 array. I'm just wondering if there's any way to recover that logical disk. When I boot up I'm given the options

Logical drive(s) disabled due to possible data loss.  
Select "F1" to continue with logical drive(s) disabled. 
Select "F2" to accept data loss and to re-enable logical drive(s)  
RESUME = "F1" OR "F2" KEY.

I haven't chosen either. F2 sounds scary. I just wish there was a way to re-import the foreign configuration like on the Dell servers.

Can anyone help?

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  • This depends entirely upon what you did immediately after deleting the logical drive. Was this in the BIOS utility?
    – ewwhite
    Jan 19, 2013 at 0:17
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    In the "available logical drive" screen it shows the logical drive there with a failed status. logical drive #3 Raid 6, 5588.8Gb, FAILED
    – Stephen
    Jan 19, 2013 at 0:31
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    One time I deleted an entire array on a ProLiant. I recreated it with the same values and the data was still there. Your mileage may vary.
    – Greg Askew
    Jan 19, 2013 at 0:52
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    @Stephen, yes. You can create full disk images by using something like dd if=/dev/sda of=/storage/disk_image_number_1 bs=1M (replace sda with the right disk and change the output file name per disk).
    – Hennes
    Jan 19, 2013 at 1:34
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    No, select F2 since it recognizes the array.
    – ewwhite
    Jan 19, 2013 at 2:30

1 Answer 1

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This is a hard lesson. You really should not be managing HP logical drives from the BIOS utility. It's far too inflexible and isn't Operating System aware, like the Online Array Configuration Utilities for Windows and Linux. Those tools show the logical drive mount points and lock specific actions if the logical drive is mounted.

Furthermore, the BIOS utility is a two-step process that asks for F8 and an F3 confirmation step before deleting a logical drive.

For now, you should bypass the array recovery for now. Boot the system into the Array Configuration Utility offline CD

Boot it and you'll be able to check the status of your logical and physical drive arrangement and see exactly what your situation is. From there, you'll be able to see what the controller thinks is on disk.

There's a chance that matching your old settings would result in the right data if the logical drive is not detected.

Since you say the logical drive is detected, pressing F2 will do as the message says; attempt recovery. I'd really look at the HP ACU tool I linked above before doing that, though.

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