MSA500 - No physical drives attached.

[David Toh]

I've connected my MSA500 to server ML370G2 64bit/66Mhz slot with SmartArray 5302 card. However,the server detected the card, but not the 5 x 146Gb physical drives inserted on MSA500. The following error was prompted while running the ACU :

There are no physical drives attached to the Compaq Smart Array 5300 Controller Slot 1. One of the following could be the problem:

- There are no supported drives attached to the controller.
- A data cable has a bad connection.
- 2 or more drives have duplicate scsi ids
- power to the external drives is off
- the os array controller driver is missing.

I've checked the above but all requirements were fulfilled. I've updated all firmware, including the server itself; Server's PCI slot;SA5302 card;MSA500; but since the harddisk cannot be detected, i'm not able to upgrade them.

Appreciate if anyone could help me up with this.

[Uwe Zessin]

David,
I have never worked with the MSA500 so far, but it looks to me like the ACU beleives it should configure the SA5300 instead of the MSA.

According to the user guide you have to select the 'Smart Array Cluster Controller' within ACU - it should be described in the ACU user guide on the CD.

[David Toh]

Hi,

Thanks for looking into my problem and suggestion. While running ACU, it can only detect 2 nos of SA5302 controllers.

Slot 1 is the one connected to MSA500;
Slot 2 is currently my Boot Controller that houses Raid 1 and Raid 5 on this File & Print server.

There is no way that i can configure the controllers on MSA500 via ACU.
I've rebooted both F&P server as well as MSA500 a few times to no avail.

My intention is to migrate data from current F&P to MSA500 as an DSA (Direct Attached Storage) to meet the storage demand. It suppose to be a straight forward setup but i did not expect such a teething problem to happen.

Any further assistance is appreciated.

[David Toh]

HI any experts !

I've not got an answer on this problem, however, does anyone know if MSA500 is able to connect to server with Smart Array 5302 adaptor in the first place ? Although the compatibility matrix gives the model 532 and 5i for MSA500, but that does not make any diff if i will to connect to 5302 isn't it ?

[Francisco Aguilar]

You have to use ACU XE 6.X(web version), is the only way to configure MSA500.

[David Toh]

I'm still troubleshooting this problem. At least now the MSA500 didn't show "No volume detected" anymore,all 5 hard disks are lighted in green now, however when i rebooted the server,it still shows 1785-Drive Array not configured. No hard drive detected.

I've upgraded ACU to version 7, it still gives the same error msg as mentioned earlier.

I stil not able to get any clues from there. I've even changed the scsi cable connecting between smart array 5302 controller in the server and msa scsi port.

any help appreicated.

[SAKET_5]

Hi David,

Are the controllers and the MSA5000 both single or dual channels?

Can you try the BIOS level raid configuration utility by pressing "F8" ( i think). Reboot the server and look for a message which indicates to get into the raid configuration options.

You obviously need to create an array first on the MSA drives before seeing any OS level volumes.

Hope I could be of some assistance and don't forget to assign points:)

Regards

[JES_sa · Accepted solution]

You are barking up the wrong tree... MSA500 needs the Raid Engine on SA5i, SA532 which lets it act as a pass through and talk to the MSA500 controllers. SA53xx or SA 64xx can't... That is why they are the only ones supported on the G1 model.
On the G2 Model, same story with 6i, 642.
See www.hp.com/go/msa

[David Toh]

Hi JES_sa,

Yes, you are right. I've already solved my headache 2 weeks back by replacing SA5302 card with SA532 and it works perfectly well.

I really appreciate those who answered to my questions.

It proves that the compatibility matrix MUST follow or else you risked jumping into unnecessary headaches.

Thanks everyone, i'm happy and migrated all my data from F&P server to MSA500 and it works very well.