The PERC 6i can support drive replacement without restarting the server, but that's provided your system has a backplane. If the system has the drives mounted in an internal cage, then yes, a shutdown would be required. I suspect that the drive not showing as degraded is just a software error. If the drive has failed, the array is degraded. Are you looking at the array status in OpenManage?   The steps you outlined should absolutely work, the shutdown may not be necessary, though.
Hey! I have an old Poweredge 2900 with 3x HDD in RAID 5 setup and would love if someone experienced could give me a sanity check. One of the disks is showing up as S.M.A.R.T: error and an orange light is blinking on the front. It seems like the array is not degeraded right now.  I have several spare disks still and would love to replace this failing disk now. Are the following steps correct for rebuilding the array?   1. Shutdown server 2. Replace failing drive in slot 3 with a new drive in the same slot 3. Boot up and enter configuration (CTRL +R ). 4. Now the RAID 5 should be degeraded I assume. 5. Make the new drive as a "Global Hotspare" and It should automatically pick it up and rebuild?     Thanks!
Perc 6/i replace failing Raid 5