I am dedicating a mere 20 minutes to the x345 server tonight (which is a lie, because i’ve already been working on it 45 minutes)… Anyway, I THINK the ServeRAID is the place to start now, but I had some confusion about the versions of the ServeRaid – there is the “IBM ServeRAID Support CD”, which is a bootable disk, and the “IBM ServeRAID Application CD” which is a multi-platform application disk. I’ll add a screenshot of the download while i’m waiting… Wouldn’t you know it? I never thought I’d add pictures to my blog as a remote user so the directory is unwritable

I’ll post how this worked out tomorrow.

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I’m tired and it’s time to go to bed. I have two more ideas that I’ll look into tomorrow:

1. Maybe the drives were placed/replaced incorrecttly and there is a termination problem that is preventing them from being recognized.

2. I think I can run the RServeRaid (I kept thinking it was called RaidConfig!) utility inside of an OS, so I’ll fire up a live version of Ubuntu or Knoppix and see if that will work. Tomorrow.

So I’m playing with an IBM x345 51x (8760) server that my school bought for me to run some of the php code I’ve developed to help the school run more smoothly. The server arrived today, and I knew it would take some configuration, and I’ve never done a fresh format of a SCSI RAID, but I’m up to the challenge.

The first start-up issue I notice is that there are several configuration utilities that run from BIOS at start time, they tell me to press Alt-A and Ctrl-A to administer the SCSI, but neither of them shows me the physical disks.

Just to be safe, I began by updating the bios from version 1.05 to 1.21. No sweat, I just hope I didn’t break anything there. I stored the old BIOS on a floppy and in the backup area of the ROM, accepting a warning that the sizes of the two bios were dissimilar and might cause a problem.

I perused the two utilities available through the boot process, but neither of them seemed exciting, so I looked at the documentation and found out about ServerGuide, which is supposed to help me set up a RAID. I was very excited when I saw “configure integrated controller with raid capabilities”, but it turns out it didn’t recognize the drives, probably because they’re not yet formatted (sort of what I thought ServerGuide would do). At this point I’m a little nervous b/c it doesn’t look like anything’s recognizing the SCSI disks, and I’m not sure what to do.

Here’s my systematic trial of boot options, beginning at the top until one of them works… if all else fails, I’ll refer to the documentation.

Alt-F1, System Partition Boot (Available from the Bios logo screen)
Result: “Cannot boot system partition. Resuming Normal Boot” and a disk request screen pops up.

F2, Diagnostics, Ctrl C, LSI logics
Result: I didn’t expect much here, but I’m being systematic. I see an option to enter the LSI Logic MPT SCSI Setup Utility; I take it. It’s a blue screen ANSI menu, with some very appealing options.. I’m poking around, afraid to change TOO much, but I don’t find any good options.. I do notice on the main menu it says “RAID Status –” indicating no RAID is set.. duh. I do see an option under Global Properties to “Disable Integrated RAID”, which could let me boot from one disk, but why waste a RAID?

F2, Diagnostics, CTRL-A, SCSI setup Utility
Result: Brings me to Adaptec SCSISELECT Utility v.3.10.0. Sort of looks promising, but I’m staring at text on the screen: “29160LP A at slot 05 00:05:00″ Pretty sure that’s just my SCSI adapter. Only one choice: Enter. Now TWO choices:

F2 == Diagnostics, CTRL-A == SCSI setup Utility, Configure/View SCSI Controller Settings.
Result: One of the options is : “SCSI Device Configuration” — sounds exciting; when I choose it, I see a matrix of Options x 16 (#0 to #15) devices.. the thing is.. they’re all lit up, and I only have 6 devices. Still, this looks like a fun place to play. Here’s the rub – I like how all of the options are set. This can’t be it.

F2 == Diagnostics, CTRL-A == SCSI setup Utility, SCSI Disk Utilities
Result: Scans SCSI devices, finds my controller, SCSI ID#7, Adaptec 29160LP. Doesn’t give me an option to do anything. Wondering if I should go look for Adaptec 29160LP software… (?)

F2 == Diagnostics
Loading ROM Diagnostics…
Starting PC DOS…
PC Doctor 2.0
Lots of information, but I need ACTION! It identifes the Host Adapter as ASPIMPT .. might be useful later.
I also ran a SCSI/RAID controller test, which showed a PASSED score.. that’s good.

F12 == PXE boot
I haven’t gone as far as setting up a dedicated PXE server… yet.. I’m going to pass on this for now.

New Gear:
On the Adaptec site, it mentions the Suse may already have the controller drivers installed, so now I’m looking at installing Suse from DVD. My new challenge is to find a way to interface the DVD drive – I’m looking at a USB/IDE adapter if it will boot from USB, or modifying (breaking) the existing IDE cable by breaking the clips to add the full size drive temporarily. I hate to break the clip, but i don’t know the server well enough to take it apart to replace the cable yet.. (I’m getting the camera out!).

Trying to boot with a USB/IDE adapted DVD drive:
Woo hoo! I have a successful USB boot. I’m using Suse 10.2; no hard disks were detected. Crap. What am I doing wrong? I must have to run some kind of pre-load software to initialize and format the drives. Now I have to find it!

Looking around at Adaptec:
I’ve located a SCSI bios update.. not sure what good this will do me either- hopefully a magical window will appear in the bios. I downloaded the new bios, but am having difficulty determining how to install it.

I’m getting tired. As a last ditch, I did an F1, Configuration/Setup and looked around in there awhile. The only thing I changed was “Partition” from invisible to “Visible”.. Not sure what the setting means, but i’m running out of ideas! Booting into Acronis to see if it will allow me to partition a drive. I’m still hung up on the whole “No SCSI BIOS found” thing. (I got excited- i thought i heard the drives reading, but it was the cd).

MPT Boot ROM, no supported devices found.

ServerGuide

MPTBIOS-IME-5.04.07

Initializing

MPT boot ROM, no supported devices found.

No SCSI boot device found.

SCSI BIOS not installed

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