HP ProLiant disk failure, proceed or do not proceed

We have a HP proliant DL385 G7 server that’s a vmware ESXI host with a failed hard drive – the drive is a HP SAS-MDL, 7.2 K, 2TB. When we boot the server we get the attached message and we are not sure which option we should go for (f1 or f2) because we have important data on the hard drive they we don’t want to risk loosing and no recent backup. Is it worth trying to risk booting up the faulty hard drive by accepting data loss and re-enabling the logical drive?

The hard drive seems to spin up and not making any noise so I don't think its a mechanical related failure.

EDIT The disk is not in any kind of storage array, this is poor config (obviously) from the previous IT guy

Solution 1:

Look at the lights on the drive...

• Are they amber?
• Why do you think the drive failed?
• If the drive failed, why is the server off (or why was it powered off)?
• I'm sorry the drive is not in a RAID, but seeing that also indicates that your server/RAID controller firmware and ESXi installation are likely outdated.
• There are older Smart Array firmware revisions with bugs that could offline certain disks.
• Looking at your screenshot, I see: an unplugged ILO with 5 year-old firmware, 5 year-old RAID controller firmware and FIVE logical drives in a server that has SIX drive bays. So, all of your disks are likely in RAID 0.
• ESXi doesn't support software RAID, so all of the data on that server is at risk.

When prompted with:

Logical drive(s) disabled due to possible data loss.
Select "F1" to continue with logical drive(s) disabled
Select "F2" to accept data loss and to re-enable logical drive(s)
RESUME = "F1" OR "F2" KEY

Press F2... There aren't many scenarios where pressing F1 is useful. It's just the default to prevent any unintended actions.

See if the server boots up.

Also see:

data lost with RAID5 on proliant DL360 when drives fail

HP SmartArray P400: How to repair failed logical drive?

HP P410i Array Controller and lost logical Drive

Replace HP Smart Array E200i without losing data

Repair HP SmartArray p410i

logical drives on HP Smart Array P800 not recognized after rebooting