LC2000 RAID5 woes

[Adam_31]

I was able to configure RAID5 on our LC2000 (ctrl-m on startup) and go through the first phase of the windows2000 install. I pressed f6 and added the mass storage device. It detected it fine and I created a 5GB partition to install on. It flew through the installation - all drives blinking away. When it's complete, it of course has you reboot so it can start from it's new installation. This is where my problem is.

The problem is after the reboot. I've configured the SymBios utility (ctrl-c during startup) correctly by assigning a boot sequence to the adapter. It finds the adapter and scans through the devices, but doesn't find the OS that I installed. "No bootable devices" or something of that nature.

Am I doing something wrong?

It was configured for non-raid before and it worked, but we want to take advantage of the RAID.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Theo Hill_1]

You need to make sure the BIOS is disbaled on the SCSI controller, and that the BIOS is enabled on the Netraid controller. This tells the system which of the controllers is bootable.

[Adam_31]

ok, when I press ctrl-C to enter the SymBios Configuration, I'm assuiming this is the SCSI setup. I have two adapters listed with the same name:

SYM53C896

I've tried turning the "next-boot" both on, both off, just the first one on, and just the second one on. With both off, I get "no supported devices" when it goes through that part of the setup. I've tried changing the sequence from 0,1 to 1,0.

The netraid setup (ctrl-M) only gives me an option to disable the bios, so I'm assuming it's on.

Any other pointers? Am I still missing anything?

[Adam_31]

PS. I don't think it's a problem with the raid since I was able to install the operating system during the setup.

It's only after I boot, it doesn't know where to boot from. I've seriously tried every different setting.

In the system bios (F2), I have the Sym53C8xx boot support set last in the boot priority.

I have the hard drive boot priority set to:

PCI RAID adapter (bus03 dev02)
Bootable Cards.

[Greg Carlson]

Adam,

What slot is your NetRaid in? Slot 3 is the recommended but Slot 5 would be the next preferred slot. Have you tried different slots? Also is your netraid BIOS set to on the main menu in ctrl-M?

Ciao,
Greg

[Adam_31]

Everyone, my problem is fixed. It was as simple as pressing f11 at startup and resetting the bios. For some reason, it boots now.

I have everything turned off in the SymBios (ctrl-c) for any newbies that search this message in the future.

I have a couple other best practices questions, but I'll put those in a new thread.

Thanks for all your help, it's nice to have RAID chugging away now instead of just using a single drive.

Adam.

[Vincent Chua_1]

Hi,
I'm having a problem now. Please help.
I'm trying to create a raid 5 using adaptec 2100s on netserver lc2000u3. The card allow me to create the raid successfully. However, when I restart the system, it will hang after the adaptec bios screen. Already disable the built-in scsi by turning off both channel. Please help.

[Adam_31]

Vincent, we've had issues with these servers, they can be very fidgety. I think we were able to fix the reboot error by resetting the bios. We did this by pressing the F11 key during startup. Give it a try, Adam.

[Vincent Chua_1]

The problem now is, after resetting the cmos, the server will restart and ask for f1, f2 to go to setup. Everything I've already tried. the 2nd reboot, the server will just hang there.
I tried to disable the "boot enable" of the adaptec raid 2100 and it's able to go thr and check there no OS installed. I've even tried to place a ide hdd and after the adaptec bios message, it will sense the ide hdd and try to boot from it.
I'm still trying to fig out what's happening...

Any others valuable advises? I'm at my wit end.

[Marino Meloni_1]

hi
in the Bios under Configuration >> Hard Drive Priority>> ,
be sure to insert at the first place "Bootable Cards"
bye

marino