SC44Ge not recognising a DAT160 SAS Drive

[CarlLawton]

I have a new ML350 G5 server that i have added an additional SC44Ge SAS HBA card for use with a DAT160 SAS drive. Problem is the card doesn't recognise the drive. I have checked the SAS HBA bios and it is set to display adapters & installed devices" but nothing shows up at boot. I'm using the split internal cable and am sure it is cabled correctly (base of the Y cable in the card and the top end with the power molex in the tape drive and power connector attached). During the boot the drive's ready light flashes and and then goes off. And it can accept tapes and eject them.

Any ideas ?

Thanks in advance.

[GustavoT]

There's an advisory on this problem, you can find it here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=c01361543&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Hope this helps,

Gus

[CarlLawton]

Thanks for the quick response Gus but i had already set this option in the bios with no joy.

[CarlLawton]

Just disconnected one of my drive bays and went for connecting the tape drive to the onboard hba with the full wiring option of the Y cable and on boot the e200i moaned that a tape drive or cdrom was connected not the expected logical drive.

Sounding like a problem with the card.

[GustavoT]

Carl,

Make sure your HBA is running the latest firmware code before. You can find the latest on this link:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=3263289&prodNameId=3263294&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-86ea6c7f49db4e82a0fb1b5dc8

Thank you

[CarlLawton]

Gus,

I tried the firmware update over the weekend.

Downloaded SP41589.exe unpacked it to a USB key and booted of that. Ran "UPDATE P" and had lots of Sasflash errors moaning that my card was a "106e b1 LSI SAS Controller". One run of sasflash didn't give the same error but did say "Verifying NVDATA" and nothing else. At the end the BIOS updates also failed. After saying "BIOS Image compatible" it would come back with "BIOS Flash: Failed"

The logs are attached.

The card's FW is 1.20.33.00-IR (SAS1068E-IR) and the bios is 6.14.07.00

Thanks for your help btw

Carl

[GustavoT]

Carl,

Is this an internal tape drive into a rackmount chassis? Do you have any other SAS Hbas connnected to the server? That firmware file should be the correct one for the SC44Ge.

[GustavoT]

Can you also check what's the driver version for that HBA?

[CarlLawton]

Gus,

The chassis is the 5U tower although i have got a rack conversion kit for it.

The tape drive is internal.

The card is reported as "LSI Adapter, SAS 3000 series, 8-port with 1068E-StorPort" in Windows 2003. Driver version is 1.24.4.0

There is also an onboard Smart Array E200i to drive my hard disk bays.

I just managed to get a replacement card and tried that with exactly the same results.

Carl

[GustavoT]

Ok, you are running under the minimum firmware required for this card, here's another link for firmware download (not the latest version but this is the minimum requiered):

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/pubsw-windows/p308277416/v46219/SP37675.exe

Procedure to install:

Use a DOS-bootable USB key to perform the upgrade:

Download the Softpaq to a directory on your hard drive.

Obtain a DOS-bootable USB key.

Run the downloaded file to extract its contents to the DOS-bootable USB key.

Boot the ProLiant server with the HP 8 internal Port SAS HBA with RAID using the DOS-bootable USB key.

Once the server has booted and displays the command prompt, change to the USB key and run the command update p.

Upon completion of flashing, the following message will be displayed:

PLEASE REBOOT YOUR SYSTEM. PROGRAMMING COMPLETE!!

Remove all diskettes/USB keys and reboot the server.

For additional instructions, see Update.txt (extracted from the Softpaq).



Also, update driver to version 1.28.2.1:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=3263289&prodNameId=3263294&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-3adf009917004138afdfd115cb

Firmware should resolve your issue, let me know the results,

Gus