Proliant DL380 G2 with Smart Array 5i Plus Controller won't recognize Hard drives

[Tim McConnell]

I cannot get the machine to read any hard drives. When I power up the machine it lights the LEDs on the drives but then no lights at all.
The machine will boot but if I go into the Raid controller set up program and try to create a logical drive,it tells me there is no drives attached. I have replaced the backplane thinking that would be the problem but it didn't change anything. There is no OS installed on the system.
If there is a way to upgrade the bios without having an OS installed please give URL for download and complete instructions.

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

The best way to upgrade the firmware when you don't have the OS installed is probably the Firmware Maintenance CD:

Instructions:
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/management/smartstart/FWCDUsersGuide.pdf

Because your server is so old, you'll probably need version 7.40, the oldest one that's still available. The newer ones have already dropped the support of older server generations.

Download page for Firmware Maintenance CD version 7.40:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=397634&swItem=MTX-2536df221c5746b8ad9656d089&prodNameId=3288132&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=0

MK

[Tim Nelson]

Is there an array setup option during boot ?
typically right after controller init.

what does it say ?

[Tim McConnell]

It does show the 5i controller but no logical drives. It did show another RAID controller, a 5300 I think and it did show the drives on that one. It disappeared after rebooting and won't return. I pulled the card from the PCI Riser and moved it to the top slot and then back to the original slot and still nothing. The Controller card has a 256 Mb Memeory card with batteries attached to it, Could the batteries of gone out and that be the source of the problem?
Thanks for the help so far.

[wobbe]

Remove the 5300 and check the scsi cable running from the backpane to the onboard controller. Check in the bios that the 5i controller is enabled and setup as your primary boot device.

Bad batteries will just disable the write cache so this is probably not an issue for you.

[Tim McConnell]

OK I found it, the cable from the backplane was not hooked to the mainboard. The 5300 controller wasn't needed. I hooked the cable to the mainboard and I now have hard drives and I was able to configure the RAID and install an OS. Problem solved thanks for all the help.

[Tim McConnell]

SCSI Cable wasn't connected to the right RAID controller.