Dell PowerVault MD3000 - Manual (Page 102)

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Maintaining a Storage Array
virtual disk and disk group. To be able to reuse the physical disks to create a
new disk group and virtual disk, you must erase all old information from the
physical disks by initializing the physical disk.
When you initialize a physical disk, all old disk group and virtual disk information
is erased, and the physical disk is returned to an unassigned state. Returning a
physical disk to an unassigned state adds unconfigured capacity to a storage
array. You can use this capacity to create additional disk groups and virtual
disks.
To initialize a physical disk, run the following command:
start physicalDisk [ enclosureID,slotID ] initialize
where enclosureID and slotID are the identifiers for the physical disk.
Reconstructing a Physical Disk
If two or more physical disks in a disk group have failed, the virtual disk shows
a status of Failed. All of the virtual disks in the disk group are no longer
operating. To return the disk group to an Optimal status, you must replace
the failed physical disks. After replacing the physical disks, reconstruct the
data on physical disks. The reconstructed data is the data as it would appear
on the failed physical disks.
To reconstruct a physical disk, run the following command:
start physicalDisk [ enclosureID , slotID ]
reconstruct
where enclosureID and slotID are the identifiers for the physical disk.
NOTE:
You can use this command only when the physical disk is assigned to a
RAID 1, 5, or 6 disk group.
Initializing a Virtual Disk
NOTICE:
When you initialize a virtual disk, all data on the virtual disk and all
information about the virtual disk are destroyed.
A virtual disk is automatically initialized when you first create it. If the virtual
disk starts exhibiting failures, you might be required to re-initialize the virtual
disk to correct the failure condition.