DL360 ACU finds no hard drives

[Loren Doornek]

I have a Compaq DL360 with two 18.2 Gb hard drives. The machine failed a couple months ago saying it couldn't find a boot drive. I've not been able to use it since. The machine is about 4 years old, and was originally loaded using SmartStart 5.30, Array Configuration Utility (ACU) 2.80A. I replaced the following parts from an identical functioning server: Hard drives, SCSI controller card in embedded slot, power supply, the long thin card that the drives plug into, drive carriers. I've upgraded the ROM to version P21, and attempted reloading with SmartStart 5.30 and 6.10. Nothing has worked - the following message is always displayed by the ACU:

There are no physical drives attached to the Compaq Smart Array Controller in Embedded Slot.

One of the following could be the problem:
- There are no supported drives attached to the controller.
- A data cable has a bad connection.
- Two or more drives have duplicate SCSI ID's.
- Power to the external drives is off.
- The OS array controller driver is off.
(15006)

Any suggestions for other things to try would be appreciated.

[Terry Hutchings · Accepted solution]

What happens when the pull the controller out of the machine? Does it see the drives on the embedded scsi then? Without any further info, I would say the problem is likely related to the system board. There isn't a scsi cable in this server. The equivalent of the cable is built into the system board.

[Loren Doornek]

I pulled out the embedded controller card and booted it. It simply say "Scanning for SCSI devices... No SCSI devices detected."

Any ideas why none would be detected?

[Terry Hutchings]

I would say if the backplane (what the drives plug into) is seated correctly, then it's likely a system board problem.

[Loren Doornek]

I checked all the seatings, and reseated them again, but it still has the same problem. Thanks for the help - it seems that you've helped me eliminate all other possibilities, so I'm off to find another system board.

[Vwdl]

Loren,
Would this be a vanilla machine with an Isac controller ?
Regards
Danny