Partner Device Required for Svr Bay 1

[DennisHerrick]

We have 2 identical racks. Each has a C3000 Blade Enclosure with a BL460c G6 in Server Bay 3 and a BL680c G5 in Server Bay 1. There are HP StorageWorks 3Gb SAS BLADE Switches in Interconnect Bays 3 and 4 and a single HP GbE2c Layer 2/3 Ethernet Blade Switch in Interconnect Bay 1. Interconnect Bay 2 is empty.

If I remember correctly, when we booted rack 1 for the first time it noticed that Interconnect Bay 2 was empty. It complained about it, but hasn't made a peep about it since. It seems to have resigned itself to the fact that there is only one network switch
available.

The second rack, on the other hand, seems to have a problem. At power-up and boot, the BL680C G5 tries to come up. The Onboard Administator Console turns yellow and there is an error message "Partner Device Required for Svr Bay 1". The BL680 takes an extra minute or so to power up and boot. It seems to wait until the Onboard Administrator turns green.
Whatever it is, it eventually recovers. No one seems to know anything about this behavior. The system was built by HP Factory Express and we had one of those Blade Configuration Support Engineers in last week to help us with another issue. He had never seen the message before. He thought "partner" might mean a Storage Blade, but we don't have one in our configuration. Rack 2 shipped to one of our divisions in Europe late last week.

Now I'm assuming the error has to do with the network, but we also have a P700m SAS controller in the BL680c G5 that connects to an MDS600.

I did notice that all eight channels from the Blade Switches to the MDS600 in rack 1 were active. There were green lights on. Rack 2, however, seemed to have 2 inactive channels from the SAS switches to the MDS600. Their lights were out. Not sure if this is an issue.

Has anyone seen this "partner" problem before?

Dennis Herrick