Proliant ML310 - cannot boot when RocketRAID card is installed

[Thorleifur Einarsson]

I have a Compaq Proliant ML310, with internal SCSI bus and 1 SCSI harddisk.

I installed RocketRaid 454 and two WD 160 GB HD which I want to mirror. I also want to use those as boot disk, store the OS on them etc,
i.e. I do not intend to use the SCSI disk.
When booting the machine, I always get an error about "SCSI BIOS not installed".
The machine first loads the Compaq bios v3.02, then loads the RR454 bios. Finally it tries to load Compaq Ultra3 Bios v3.02.01 but without success.
I have contacted RR, they suggest that perhaps motherboard bios doesn't have enough room to load the RocketRAID 454 bios, then this problem happens.

Is there any fix for this ?

Best regards,
Thorleifur

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello,
Have you set the BOOT CONTROLLER ORDER to first for RR454?? If not then do this by going into the BIOS set up.

Regards,

[Thorleifur Einarsson]

Hi,
the problem is that I CANNOT enter the BIOS with the RR installed !
If I take out the RR card then I can enter the BIOS (using F9), I can enable/disable the PCI Embedded Compaq WUltra3 SCSI controller (IRQ5) but I cannot change the Boot controller order.
Boot ctrl 1 is the WU3 SCSI controller and
Boot ctrl 2 is the PCI embedded Compaq integrated PCI IDE controller.
I cannot change the above settings.

With the RR card installed, the machine first reads the Compaq BIOS, then the RR BIOS, and then SCSI BIOS (if it is enabled).
After having invoked the RR BIOS
1. installing the SCSI BIOS will be unsuccessful
2. Entering the BIOS using F9 will be unsuccessful (does not matter if SCSI is enabled or disabled)

Best regards,
Thorleifur

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello,
Please try entering the F9 while the RR is installed but no HDDs are connected at all. This way the system will be prevented to read the hdds. Also try installing the RR controller in a different slot even.

Regards,

[e4services]

I agree with the last.
It could be the slot you have it in. Some slots have shared interrupts, check you user manual. Also, at least my Promise controller, does not load the IDE RAID BIOS when there is no hard drives attached, but the SCSI BIOS does not load when disabled also. You say in your situation that your SCSI BIOS is loading no matter if you have it disabled, that is strange.

[Thorleifur Einarsson]

Hi,
I tried disconnecting the 2 HDs from the RR card and then I can boot the computer and enter BIOS with the RR card installed.
So now I have in the BIOS changed the boot control order so that RR card is Boot ctlr 1, and now the computer can boot from a floppy.

Note that the 2 HDs are "fresh", i.e. not formatted and no OS.
Also changed the slots - everything works fine UNTIL I reconnect the HDs to the RR card.
When disks are connected to RR card, the boot sequence is not successful and I cannot boot from the floppy :)

[David Pelletier]

Hmm... Did you try to boot from smartstart and click "Restart in RBSU" in order to force the server to get there?

David

[Thorleifur Einarsson]

We got the following information from High Point experts:

RR454 BIOS will save the data to the memory, which conflict with system
BIOS, this is a known problem for some motherboard.

So you can not install the OS to RR454 based on current BIOS, and it only
can be a data storage, not a system installation onto RR454 on this
motherboard.

But thanks anway for the help

Best regards,
Thorleifur