Netserver LD Pro

[Scott_403]

I just got a netserver ld for free. its got 2 9gb hotswap drives and 2 20gb seagate SCSI drives. the 20gb drives are connected to a SCSI PCI controller and the hotswap drives are connected to the main board. my problem is, when I boot up, everything goes fine until the system tries to inialize a SCSI hard drive and actually boot an OS. there's an error message that says no hard drives installed even though it listed the hotswap drives earlier in the post screen. I've tried many different settings in the ECU, but I've not had any luck. any help would be appreciated.

[Dave Unverhau_1]

Scott,

Does the message say that no hard drives are installed, or "no bootable devices found"?

When the POST IDs the SCSI drives, does it assign drive letters to any of them?

You only mention the hot-swap drives being ID'd. Are they ID'd by the RAID controller, and if so, is ther any indication that there are logical drives configured?

What kind of controller are the two "common tray" drives attached to?

Do you have a Navigator CD or a copy of the ECU on diskette?

Best Regards,

Dave

[e4services]

Well, it would not have listed the Hot Swap drives earlier, but the std SCSI ddrives attached. The SCSI BIOS will display the attached drives it finds on the bus during posted. The RAID controller BIOS does not, you would have to enter the setup to actually see if there is a configuration.
My guess would be that there is no logical drives on any drive, that would produce the result you describe, that is the drives have been cleaned and all partitions and RAID configuration has been cleared.
If we are speaking of the installation of the OS, then here you would need to load the RAID and SCSI drivers during the driver load. If you had not done so, you also would produce such a result.

[Dave Unverhau_1]

I couldn't remember if the LD has an integrated NetRaid controller, so I checked the service manual, and it looks like that server pre-dates the introduction of the NetRaid controller. If there is a RAID controller installed, it will be either an EISA or PCI SCSI DAC.

If the hot-swap disks are connected to the integral SCSI controller on the system board, they are not utilizing hardware RAID. Perhaps the common-tray drives are connected to a DAC, but the controller for these drives may also be a simple SCSI HBA.

In any event, Scott, it sounds like you have two problems to deal with. First, the system BIOS may not be assigning drive letters to the hot-swap drives. This is probably due to improper configuration.

Second, it appears that the other two drives aren't recognized by the system BIOS. This might be because those two drives aren't supported by the BIOS (I thought that the largest hard drives that the older NetServers could ID were 9GB), or there could be a hardware problem (SCSI HBA, cabling, termination or configuration).

I expect that the first problem is that the boot order isn't set correctly for the drives you have. Here's an excerpt from the service manual that explains the boot order configuration for the NetServer LD:

============================================
Boot Device Priority

The following is the search path in order of the highest boot device priority:

1. CD-ROM drive with bootable CD-ROM
2. Flexible disk drive with bootable flexible disk
3. IDE drive
4. The first mass storage device attached to the EISA, ISA or PCI (embedded or added) controller
set to the lowest BIOS address. The lowest BIOS address is usually C8000h.


To Boot From a PCI Controller Board

Systems with only PCI boards (No EISA or ISA Boards)
Your system uses the following default PCI boot priority order:

1. Embedded SCSI A
2. PCI slots in the following order: 9, 8, 7, and 6.
If you have drives attached to the SCSI A connector, you must change the PCI boot priority order in the EISA
Configuration Utility so that the PCI slots precede SCSI A:
To change the PCI boot priority order, perform the following:
1. Go to the EISA Configuration Utility.
2. Select "Step 3: View or edit details."
3. Select "PCI SCSI Boot Priority Order" and press Enter.
4. Set to "PCI adapters before SCSI A" and press Enter.
5. Exit and save the configuration.
Systems with PCI and EISA or ISA boards

If you have a system with a mixture of PCI and ISA or EISA boards perform the following:

1. Install the PCI controller board in slot 9.
2. Go to the EISA Configuration Utility.
3. Select "Step 3: View or edit details."
4. Select "PCI 9 - PCI SCSI Controller" and press F6.
5. Set the top Memory Address resource to "0C8000h" and press F10.
6. Press F7 and select "Lock/unlock boards." Select the PCI board in slot 9 and lock.
7. Exit and save the configuration.


To Boot From an Embedded PCI Controller (SCSI A)

Systems with only PCI boards (No EISA or ISA Boards)

If you only have PCI boards in your NetServer, your system uses the following default PCI boot priority
order:

1. Embedded SCSI A
2. PCI slots in the following order: 9, 8, 7, and 6.

Systems with PCI and EISA or ISA boards

If you have a system with ISA or EISA boards, you must set the BIOS and other memory resources for those
boards to the top of the D0000h range.

To Boot From an ISA Controller Board

Set the BIOS address to C8000h.


To Boot From an EISA Controller Board

1. Go to the EISA Configuration Utility.
2. Select "Step 3: View or edit details."
3. Set the controller's BIOS to C8000h.


SCSI Controller Boot Order

During boot, the system BIOS performs the following:

1. The system BIOS will start searching for BIOS ROMs at 0C8000h.
2. If an ISA, EISA or locked PCI BIOS controller is found, the system will call that BIOS to initialize.
The controller BIOS that is called first will normally be the boot controller.
3. If the memory range at 0C8000h is not being used, the system will search through the list of PCI
devices for the first PCI BIOS that will fit in the open memory range. The system will search the
PCI devices in the following order: Embedded SCSI A, PCI slot 9, slot 8, slot 7, slot 6. If the
system BIOS finds a PCI BIOS that fits in the open memory range, that PCI BIOS will be
shadowed at 0C8000h and called to initialize.
4. After calling the BIOS ROM, the system will continue searching for BIOS ROMs at the address
immediately following the BIOS ROM just called (repeat steps 2 through 4).

=========================
NOTE: In order to optimize PCI board BIOS installation, you need to leave the largest open
range of memory possible. Group the EISA and ISA board BIOSs at either the
beginning or end of the 0C8000h through 0DFFFFh range.
=========================
============================================
I hope this helps you resolve your startup problems, Scott!

Best Regards,

Dave

[Scott_403]

Thanks alot guys, I appreciate your help alot. I'm gonna give your suggestions a try and hopre for the best. If for some reason I encounter anymore problems, I'll just post it here. I'm kinda suprised how fast I got a response, I'm really happy though. Thanks Again.

Scott