configuring smart-2sl controller

[Bob Miller_6]

hello:
I have recently acquired a proliant 1600 server, and have been playing with it for some time, I have had debian running on it, and all seems good. then I decided it was time to learn how to do RAID. I read that in order to do it, I needed to configure it before I installed the OS, so with the smartstart cd, I erased everything, set up to use linux as an os, then when I got to the array configuration utility, it told me no physical drives were found. seemed obvious I had the cables plugged in wrong, so I checked, they looked right. downloaded the setup manual, and according to those diagrams, it looks like my scsi cable is plugged into the right port. When I run the drive array diagnosis from the smartstart cd, I get three lines;
controller is not configured
no configuration for array accelerator board
array accelerator parity read errors:10

but still, when I run the array configuration utility, it says there are no physical drives attached to the compaq smart-2sl controller in slot 1.
in slot 1, I have the card, with a scsi cable going to the backplane, and the drive bay has a separate scsi cable going to the back plane. there are 2 ports on the backplane, and I get the same results no matter which way I plug them in. when I boot the machine, it sees all three drives, the system configuration utitly sees them too. it occurs to me I maybe need a scsi cable going directly from slot one to the drive bay, but since the machine didn't come to me like that, and I do not have a long enough cable to do such a task, I am hoping this is not the case...
There is a slew of manuals on this site about the proliant 1600, but I haven't found one yet that suggests a solution to this problem, can someone point me in the right direction?

[Terry Hutchings · Accepted solution]

It sounds like you have the cable from the controller plugged into the mini backplane. The cable should be plugged into the controller and the other end should be plugged into the drive backplane (the other side of the board from where the drives are plugged into).

[Bob Miller_6]

I got a longer scsi cable, plugged the card directly into the drive bay, and yes that was the ticket. thanks :)

[Bob Miller_6]

posted above