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Ok, I added a couple of new HDDs to a Dell t430 server. I went to configure the new drives in a RAID1 array in the RAID controller. I think my mistake is I went in through "Lifecycle management" instead of through setup configuration. I told the controller I wanted to add the new virtual drive and include my two new HDDS. That part went fine.

However, an existing virtual drive with 2 SSDs and the operating system disappeared (apparently replaced by the new virtual drive I created??). I at no time told the system to delete any existing array.

I pulled one of the existing SSDs and put it in another machine and am relieved to see my data still on it (recovering from backups would be a large operation here and it's late--and I'd lose some additional work to the backup being a few days stale).

However, I can't convince the PERC h330 to see the RAID1 virtual drive. Any option that involves recreating the virtual drive warns that all data will be destroyed. How do I get the RAID1 virtual drive back without losing my data?

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  • Sounds like you got things figured out based on the answer you added. Next time around, I'd strongly recommend you use OpenManage Server Administrator for adding disks - no BIOS configuration or reboots necessary if they're in hot-swap trays!
    – JimNim
    Jan 3, 2017 at 15:51

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So it turns out the dire warning about my data being lost was a lie. I made sure to select "No" for initialization when creating the virtual drive and after creating an image of one of the disks in another machine, I bravely clicked "Confirm" and "Yes" on the screen saying all data on the physical drives would be lost. Despite the warning, the data was intact and I was able to boot off the new virtual drive and go on my merry way.

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