Storage Pool Read-Only Unhealthy

Question

Okay, I've gotten myself into a pickle. Situation:

1. I had a 4-disk, mirrored storage pool
2. I wanted to remove 2 disks, so I retired them (prepared them for removal)
3. I waited until the process was done and Get-PhysicalDisk reported "retired"
4. I PHYSICALLY removed them and formatted them without completing the final "remove" step.

SO, now I have a very odd situation. I have a 4-drive pool with two "retired" drives that have "lost communication". All data is on the two remaining drives, but they are inaccessible because the pool is "unhealthy". The pool is in a read-only OperationalStatus, so I can't modify the pool configuration.

I have tried to set the pool's -IsReadOnly flag to $false. Works. BUT the operational status remains read-only, perhaps because the health status is unhealthy? I even physically reattached the missing disks. But because the disks had been reset, they aren't recognized by the pool.

Anyway, the current relevant status of pools, physical and virtual disks is as follows:

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-StoragePool

FriendlyName OperationalStatus HealthStatus IsPrimordial IsReadOnly     Size AllocatedSize
------------ ----------------- ------------ ------------ ----------     ---- -------------
Storage pool Read-only         Unhealthy    False        False      10.91 TB       3.18 TB
Primordial   OK                Healthy      True         False      11.79 TB       5.46 TB

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-PhysicalDisk

FriendlyName         SerialNumber                   MediaType CanPool OperationalStatus  HealthStatus Usage            Size
------------         ------------                   --------- ------- -----------------  ------------ -----            ----
WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0 WD-WMC4N0381258                HDD       True    OK                 Healthy      Auto-Select   2.73 TB
WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0                                HDD       False   Lost Communication Warning      Retired       2.73 TB
WDC WD30EFRX-68N32N0 WD-WCC7K3NJ49H4                HDD       False   OK                 Healthy      Auto-Select   2.73 TB
WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0                                HDD       False   Lost Communication Warning      Retired       2.73 TB
ST3000DM001-1CH166   Z1F29FQX                       HDD       False   OK                 Healthy      Auto-Select   2.73 TB
ADATA SX8200NP       2I3020079406        _00000001. SSD       False   OK                 Healthy      Auto-Select 894.25 GB
WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0 WD-WMC4N0437933                HDD       True    OK                 Healthy      Auto-Select   2.73 TB

The two "Can Pool" drives are the ones that I removed and reattached (*58 and *33). The two that are part of the pool are (probably obviously) *H4 and *QX.

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-StoragePool -IsPrimordial $false | Get-PhysicalDisk

FriendlyName         SerialNumber    MediaType CanPool OperationalStatus  HealthStatus Usage          Size
------------         ------------    --------- ------- -----------------  ------------ -----          ----
WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0                 HDD       False   Lost Communication Warning      Retired     2.73 TB
WDC WD30EFRX-68N32N0 WD-WCC7K3NJ49H4 HDD       False   OK                 Healthy      Auto-Select 2.73 TB
WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0                 HDD       False   Lost Communication Warning      Retired     2.73 TB
ST3000DM001-1CH166   Z1F29FQX        HDD       False   OK                 Healthy      Auto-Select 2.73 TB


PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-VirtualDisk

FriendlyName  ResiliencySettingName FaultDomainRedundancy OperationalStatus HealthStatus  Size FootprintOnPool StorageEfficiency
------------  --------------------- --------------------- ----------------- ------------  ---- --------------- -----------------
Storage space Mirror                1                     Detached          Unhealthy    50 TB         3.18 TB         1,571.76%

Anybody have any ideas? At least short of doing a relatively expensive recovery? All I need to do is remove the two "retired" drives from the pool. Seems like it's just a database issue. Certainly no data should be lost or corrupt.

Oh, Windows 10, not server, if it matters.

Answer 1

Try to repair the storage space using an elevated PowerShell shell.

One needs first to retrieve the names of the physical and virtual disks :

Get-PhysicalDisk
Get-VirtualDisk

Assuming that the friendly name of a failed physical disk is PhysicalDisk-1 and the virtual disk is named Prod1 Virtual Disk (the first command may be superfluous here) :

Set-PhysicalDisk –FriendlyName 'PhysicalDisk-1' –Usage Retired
Repair-VirtualDisk –FriendlyName 'Prod1 Virtual Disk'
Remove-PhysicalDisk –FriendlyName 'PhysicalDisk-1'

---

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