ML110 G7 will not POST with Crucial SSDs

[samcrawford2012]

Hello,

I've just purchased an ML110 G7 and am very impressed with the overall quality of the product.

However, I'm having trouble adding some Crucial 512GB m4 SSDs to the server. I am attempting to connect two of them, using the second SATA controller onboard (via the two unused SATA ports on the motherboard). When they are connected the server will not go past the POST screen (where it tells you the CPU installed and quantity of RAM).

Pressing any button during POST displays the POST messages, and I can see the SSDs are being detected, but then it hangs immediately after that.

As soon as I remove the SSDs then it POSTs normally.

I've tried having only one SSD connected and I've tried a variety of SATA cables.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Sam

[JohnWRuffo]

If you already have four non-hot plug drives in the cage, I do not think it will support two more drives.  I believe you need another controller....

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c02788712/c02788712.pdf

Page 34

[samcrawford2012]

Hi John,

Thanks for the reply. At the moment there's 3 drives in the cage and this is connected to the first onboard controller.

The thing that puzzles me is that the drives are detected correctly via the 2nd onboard SATA controller, but they just won't proceed past POST.

I suppose it could be HP restricting what devices you can connect to the 2nd controller, but it seems more likely to be a compatibility issue to me.

I may give another controller a shot - it'd be a shame though.

Sam

[JohnWRuffo]

just as a "weird" test ... unplug the CD ROM???  I don't think this will change anyting but...

[samcrawford2012]

There's no CD-ROM connected. Only the SSDs are connected via the SATA ports.

I'm going to try a firmware update of the SSDs via another PC shortly... I know SSDs can be fussy.

I'm also going to try plugging in one of the LFF disks via the 2nd SATA controller. If the server refuses to POST in that configuration, then we know that there is some restriction on the types of devices that can be connected to the 2nd controller (given that the same disk works fine on the 1st controller via the cage).

Sam

[samcrawford2012]

No luck with any of my ideas above.

I have tried:

1) Upgrading the ML110 G7 firmware to the latest version (released today)

2) Upgrading the Crucial m4 SSD firmware to the latest version (000F)

I have also tried putting LFF SATA disks on the 2nd onboard controller, and this works fine. So there is no reason that the SSDs should not work in the same configuration.

I'm stumped - any suggestions?

Thanks,

Sam

[samcrawford2012 · Accepted solution]

This issue has been resolved. The SATA controller needs to be changed to AHCI mode before it would POST with the SSDs attached (it is set to "Legacy mode" by default).

Hopefully this will help someone else in the future!

Sam

[d3vnul]

So crucial m4 works without problems ? You didn't encounter any issues with the temperature sensors and high fans activity ?

[JustinWC]

I had the same experience. I have an ML110 G7 and am trying to use 4x 512GB Crucial M4 SSDs. The system will hang during POST no matter what the SATA settings are, RAID, AHCI or Legacy. 

I added an Adaptec ASR-6405 controller and unplugged the mini-SAS (8087) connector from the onboard controller and connected it to the ASR-6405. This resulted in successful POST but I was unable to install Windows with a message similar to "Windows cannot install to the selected device / partition". 

I replaced the Crucial SSDs in the enclosure with some older SATA II SSDs and was able to install the OS without issues. I have reproduced this issue on two separate ML110 G7 boxes. I ended up getting a 8087 > 4x SATA breakout cable and mounting all 4 512GB SSDs inside the case (bypassing the ML110 G7 backplane / enclosure) and was able to install on the Crucial 512GB disks. 

Hope this helps someone out there - I know I've got many hours into this issue so far including a couple calls to HP, Adaptec and Crucial. Issue ended up being the backplane itself and SATA 3 compatibility from what I gather. 

[Marcusaurelius]

So the accepted solution to this problem is to change the SATA controller settings as per samcrawford2012 comments.

However the reply by JustinWC suggest that this solution did not work for them..

Is there any clarification on this at all?

For example did changing the SATA controller work for the original poster but may not work in all conditions...

I was about to purchase this server and the crucial drives before I found this page, thankfully.

[Ol4Ma]

I bought a ML110 G7 and I am experiencing similar issues.

If the BIOS is set to SATA Legacy, booting from each SATA device is possible, you get an option to choose which controller should start first, #1 or #2. If you select SATA AHCI, only the first 4 devices (controller #1, SAS connector) are seen by the BIOS.

I booted with a USB optic drive and, once the kernel (Illumos) started, it recognized all the devices and I was able to install on the 5th one, not seen at boot. Of course, I'm trying now to boot from this device, I'm not there yet.

I think I will put a USB flash drive on the internal USB and then I will boot the kernel from it, then I will let it give complete control to the OS located on the actual boot device. This should work, because somehow, after installing the OS on that disk not seen by the BIOS, at the next reboot (reboot command issued directly from the install media), the system booted correctly. As soon as I turned off the power, no more booting from the 5h device.