DL360G3 (new) - no disk spin-up, nada..

[Ewan McDonell]

I've got a fresh out of the box, new DL360 G3 (2.8/1Gb), with the Smartstart 6.2 software.

I've installed 2 brand new HP 36.4 Gb U320 disks. The unit has a smart array 5i controller with 64mb. Everything works just fine, except the disks don't spin up at POST, and they are not detected by the controller. I'm really hoping that this is a FAQ, and that I'm missing something really basic, but is there any in-band configuration, or setup that I'm missing here?

The controller initializes itself okay, but from what I can see there's no power going to the disks - either of them. None of the status LEDs illuminate (at all)... To pre-empt some basic avenues of investigation: the server is plugged-in, and does power up. The disks are plugged in and locked in their bays okay. I have not forced, jemmied, or otherwise jammed square things into round holes. All tests and diagnostics on the smartstart CD indicate a healthy system, with no errors indicated. In fact, everything appears to be hunky dory, except for these disks....

The firmware has been flashed up to date on both the system and the controller. I have tried erasing the NVRAM, etc and rebooting. I have checked and ensured that the controller memory chip is seated okay. And as far as I can see, the power cables are properly connected to the controller card.

Any clues or suggestions would be gratefully received. Otherwise, I can't believe I'm going to have to chase warranty on a server that's barely 5 minutes out of the box. Pretty poor show for a new bit of kit...

Many thanks,

Ewan

[Martin Breidenbach]

That system has an onboard RAID controller. So the physical drives will not be displayed during power on self test. You can access the ORCA raid config utility by pressing F8 when prompted. There it should display the drives. Did you check there ?

But since you say the drives don't show any activity this will probably not work. The drives should spin up and show some activity when the RAID controller checks its SCSI channel. There might be something defective - like the hot plug drive cage backplane.

[Ewan McDonell]

Kevin Welsh's thread entitled ' Proliant 1600/450 server will not power up' yielded the fix for my problem. The server was freshly delivered by courier, so the theory about needing to reseat connections inside the box turned out to be precisely what was required.

I had already checked all the connections to make sure there was nothing loose, but this time around I went back in and disconnected and then reconnected, the power wires and controller ribbon, and ensured that the backplane was seated firmly. The next boot attempt immediately yielded lights on the disks, and the controller immediately detected the disks and allowed me to configure them via ORCA.

Many thanks.

Regards,

Ewan