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RAID 5 Drive Replacement
I have a Dell Poweredge 1900 in a RAID 5 configuration running SBS2003. One of the drives failed and instead of taking the drive offline first I just pulled the bad drive out and put in a new drive. I purchased what was supposed to be an exact match but it turned out to be slightly smaller and I didn't realize it. In the Dell OpenManage software it was still listed as failed (I assume now because I never took the actual failed drive offline) so I first tried to tell the OpenManage software to rebuild the drive and it failed (refused to try). I then chose the option to put online. This caused the drive to no longer be listed as failed and the OS (sbs2003) didn't crash but it became semi-unresponsive.
I had to leave because the business was closing. I was hoping that the drive was just rebuilding and I would be able to remote in when I got back to my office. When I couldn't remote in I called the owner. The owner was still in the office and when she checked the server it was sitting with a black screen and a blinking cursor. Apparently the server crashed and rebooted itself and now won't load Windows. I had her remove the drive I put in and leave it one drive short and it still won't boot. I realize my original mistake was forcing online a drive that is smaller than the working RAID drives.
My plan is to meet her there first thing in the morning and try to get this resolved. What should be my first step? Should I leave the drive out and try to recover the RAID? Should I put the failed drive back in and force it online (or force rebuild)?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Kevin G