RAR / Whatever it is saying now / Foreign configuration: import or clear

Foreign configuration found · Import · Clear · Virtual disk import failed · storcli /c0/fall import · DDF

Foreign configuration found: import or clear? The drives are describing a set the controller does not recognise. One button reads the description. The other deletes it.

Every member of a hardware RAID set carries a copy of the set's description in a reserved area near the end of the drive: which array it belongs to, its position, the level, the stripe size, and a count of how current its copy is. A controller that boots and finds drives whose description does not match its own records, or that has no records because it is a replacement, reports a foreign configuration and offers two buttons. Import adopts the description and brings the set up. Clear deletes the description from the drives so they can be presented as new. Virtual disk import failed means the controller tried and could not, usually because a member is missing, the copies disagree, or the configuration came from a newer firmware. This is the array-level page; the drive site has the same message from the member's point of view. A set of two to four members is £500 + VAT upwards after the free look, fixed in writing; a set whose configuration was cleared is reassembled from images and priced as a set.

Free first lookOne fixed figure in writingNo data, no bill on most jobsReturn postage paid

Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
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Do not clear the foreign configuration. It deletes the set's description from the drives. Do not import it unless every member is present and nothing was written since the set was last consistent. Photograph the controller's screen, power down, and label the slots.

What a foreign configuration is, and what each button does.

Hardware RAID controllers write their configuration to a reserved area at the end of every member drive, the DDF format on PERC, MegaRAID and Intel, HPE's own RIS on Smart Array, so that a set can survive its controller. When the controller starts, it reads the description from every drive and compares it with the last configuration it saved. Drives whose description matches are brought up; drives whose description belongs to a set the controller does not remember are reported as foreign, and the controller waits to be told what to do. On MegaRAID the same thing is done from the command line: storcli /c0/fall show lists the foreign configurations, and storcli /c0/fall import adopts them.

The usual reasons are innocent. The controller was replaced and remembers nothing. The drives were moved to another server, or between slots. An expander in a shelf failed and every drive vanished together, and when the shelf came back the controller no longer trusted them. A drive dropped out during a power cut and came back with an older description than the others, so it disagrees with its own set. In every one of those cases the description on the drives is still the truth, and Import reads it and brings the array up, provided every member is present and the copies agree. When a member is missing, or the copies disagree because one is stale, Import can bring up a set with the wrong geometry or the wrong member, and write to it; or it reports Virtual disk import failed and leaves the drives foreign.

Clear does one thing: it erases the description from the drives. The controller then sees unconfigured drives, and the next step, creating a new virtual disk on them, initialises them. The data is still on the platters until the initialise runs, but the description of how it was arranged is gone, and the bench has to reconstruct the geometry from the data itself. That is possible, and it is a longer job than reading a description that was there five minutes ago.

What it says, and what it means.

Describe yours to us →

What you see	The usual reason	Where that leaves you
Foreign configuration found after a controller swap	The new controller has no records	Import if every member is present and current; otherwise send the set and the old controller
Foreign configuration on one drive of a running set	That drive dropped out and came back stale	Do not import it into the set; image it
Whole shelf foreign after it vanished together	An expander or cable failed	Restore it with the head off; import usually clean; never clear
Virtual disk import failed	A member missing, copies disagree, or newer firmware	Do not clear; send the set
Configuration cleared already	The description is gone	Every member imaged; geometry reconstructed from the data
Cleared and a new virtual disk created	Initialisation may have run	Assessed for what the initialise reached

From the parcel arriving to your files going back.

Work we have closed →

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

A case number goes on the parcel and a number on every member the day it is opened, matched to the slot you wrote on it. Each member goes on the imager its interface needs, never on a controller, and its metadata is read before a sector is: the level, the order, the stripe size, the event counts that say which member is current and which dropped out first. An engineer settles what has happened to the set and how much of it can honestly be read back. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNo rebuilds, no imports, no initialise

Every member imaged, including the one that failed first

Every drive in the set is imaged sector by sector, weak areas last, on hardware that controls every retry, with a map of what could not be read kept for each. Members with failed heads go to the clean bench first; that is the drive site's work and the same bench does it. The drive that dropped out first is imaged too, because it still holds every stripe written before it dropped, and a rebuild that stalled part-way never reached them.

Sector by sector, weak areas lastThe first-dropped member included

The geometry, from the metadata or from the parity

A set that arrives with its foreign configuration intact is read on the bench from the description on the drives: order, level, stripe size and the event counts that say which member is current. A set whose configuration was cleared is read from the data itself, with the parity arithmetic used to find the order, the rotation and the stripe size, and the file system's own structures fixing the offset.

Metadata first, parity secondOrder, stripe, rotation, offset

Assembled in software, and repaired on the virtual volume

The set is put together from the images in software, with nothing written to any of them: the current members in, the stale member used only to fill holes a survivor could not give. The file system is checked and repaired on a copy of the virtual volume, VMFS and CSV volumes opened and the virtual machines' disks extracted, databases repaired where they need it. The originals are not touched again.

Nothing written to the imagesVirtual machines and databases opened

You see the file list before you pay

What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the job5–10 days at the bench

From the bench

Photograph the screen before you touch either button. The controller lists which drives are foreign and why, and the bench can read it from the photograph.
Import with a member missing brings up a degraded set that the controller will then want to rebuild. It is not safer than sending the set.
Import failed is the controller being careful. Leave it there.
Send the old controller if it was the one replaced; its saved configuration is the other copy of the description, and a newer firmware on the new one is a common reason for the refusal.

Tonight, in this order: stop writes and do not reboot repeatedly; press nothing the controller offers (F2, Import, Clear, Force online, Rebuild); photograph the screen and label the slots; export the log without changing state (PERC TTYLOG or storcli show all, an SSA diagnostic report, mdadm --examine on every member, zpool import with no flags, Get-VirtualDisk); power down and send every member, plus the controller if it was replaced or holds a key. The first-response page has the reasons.

One job, followed all the way through.

UK · RAR-2026-0615JOB LOGGED ✓

An R730 whose PERC H730 was replaced under warranty with a card on newer firmware, 'Virtual disk import failed' on every boot, and an engineer who suggested clearing to get the server up

The owner declined and sent the eight drives and both controllers. The DDF metadata on the drives was intact and consistent; the new card's firmware had refused it. The set was assembled in software from the images with the geometry read straight from the description, the NTFS volume mounted, and the shares copied out. The drives went back with a note about matching the firmware before the set was reimported.

100% of the volume recovered6 days here, and back by post

Illustrative example — replace with a genuine case

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

Photograph the controller's screen or export storcli /c0/fall show
Power down and label the slots
Send every member, and the old controller if it was replaced
Tell us which drive was moved, swapped or replaced, and when

What sets us back

Clearing the foreign configuration
Importing it with a member missing
Creating a new virtual disk on the drives
Moving drives between slots to see

Questions answered before you commit.

Should I import the foreign configuration?

If every member is present, the copies agree and nothing has been written since the set was last consistent, yes. If a member is missing, a drive dropped out and came back, or the controller says import failed, no.

I cleared it. Is the data gone?

Not yet. Clearing erases the description of the set, not the data. The set is reassembled from images with the geometry recovered from the data itself. Do not create a new virtual disk on the drives.

What does Virtual disk import failed mean?

That the controller tried to adopt the description and could not: a member is missing, the copies disagree, or the configuration was written by a newer firmware than the controller runs. Leave it there and send the set.

What does it cost?

£500 + VAT upwards for a set of two to four members after the free look; a shelf from £1,250 + VAT. A set whose configuration was cleared is priced as a set.

How long does it take?

5–10 days at the bench; longer where the geometry must be reconstructed, and the figure says which.

Where this usually leads.

Virtual disk failed or offline →Dell PERC →Broadcom MegaRAID and ServeRAID →RAID 50 and RAID 60 →

Nothing gets worse while it is powered down.

Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. Until that list reaches you, leave the server off and the drives in their slots.

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