I have an older R900 with a Perc 6/i controller with six 500gb SAS (Seagate ST9500430SS) drives configured in a RAID 5 array. Recently Drive 0 failed so I replaced it with an identical drive. The replacement drive showed up and after I inserted it I got the E1810 Fault error on the LCD display so I assumed that it was also defective. I exchanged it with the seller and inserted a 2nd replacement. Same E1810 error. I booted into the controller utility and it showed that the drive is missing so I naturally assumed that I'm a victim of bad luck and received two faulty drives. The vendor sent me a 3rd drive and it also shows the E1810 Fault error.
I cut my losses with that vendor and assumed they were selling junk drives so I bought a brand new drive from another vendor. Popped the drive in, E1810 Fault error.
What is going on here? I have never seen this behavior before. Could the slot somehow be bad? If so, can I keep all of my data and move the disk from slot 0 to slot 7? I need to find a solution fast because the array is not configured with a hot spare. Another failed disk means all of my data is gone. Any suggestions other than wiping the config and starting over?