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I have a RAID array built with 5 SAS drives (RAID 5).

I finally got in the last drive the other day, and, not surprisingly, it has some foreign config on it from the last array it was part of.

So I went into the PERC 5 configuration utility, and it does not give me the option to delete the foreign data.

I have searched on the web and the only references I can find to doing this task is in the Dell OMSA (OpenManage Storage Administrator) -- the problem is this:

I do not have Windows installed, and I do not have any xfree86/xorg GUI stuff installed on this box, and I don't want to install it.

Is there some magic trick to making this work (deleting the foreign data off the drive so it can be used in the current array) just using the bios based configuration utility at startup?

**# UPDATE / SOLUTION:# Nevermind. Figured it out.

Powered down server. Popped out my 5 drives, leaving only the 'foreign' drive installed.

Went into the bios based PERC configuration tool, highlighted the 'No configuration present' or some such under the 'Controller 0' section and hit F2 to bring up the options, from there it allowed me to either import or delete the foreign config.**

floppyraid
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  • Answers go in the Answer box below, not in the question. Welcome to Server Fault. – Michael Hampton Aug 05 '12 at 18:27
  • Yes my apologies Michael. I tried to do that earlier but I was presented with this error: Oops! Your answer couldn't be submitted because: Users with less than 10 reputation can't answer their own question for 8 hours after asking. You may self-answer in 7 hours. Until then please use comments, or edit your question instead. discard – floppyraid Aug 05 '12 at 21:49
  • Aha, I forgot about the time restriction. It'll go away soon. :) – Michael Hampton Aug 05 '12 at 22:26

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You do not need Windows to run OMSA. There is a CentOS-based live-cd with OMSA 6.5 - which would have done the job.

If you have a linux that is supported by omsa you can install it directly and run it from there (via GUI or omconfig-cli).

Nils
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  • oh thank you, i didnt realize there was a cli version of OMSA. i knew there was a GUI one and I really didn't want to install x. either way, figured it out using the boot time configuration utility. thank you for the heads up though :) – floppyraid Aug 05 '12 at 21:48
  • @floppyraid the GUI is basically a (selv-contained) application server with web-interface, programmed in java, not a X-application. The gui is then contacted by default via a web-browser and https, port 1311. – Nils Aug 06 '12 at 20:14