Proliant 1600 Smart Array 3200 not recognizing drives in drive cage

[Jack Frei]

I have 3 4.3GB Ultra SCSI drives attached to the 3200. When the 1600 boots up it initializes the 3200 but no drives are detected. The BIOS version is P08 (12/10/1999) and the 3200 initialization process says "no drives detected"

I have confirmed the ribbon cable is connected to the 3200 properly but I do not have another cable to swap.

Other than a bad cable what might cause the 3200 to not recognize the drives?

[Oleg Koroz · Accepted solution]

Other than a bad cable what might cause the 3200 to not recognize the drives?
Faulty controller or drives or cage or cable
What you really can do is: see if light comes on at he drives, at least they get juice / spin
Run cleaning utility sp22002.exe (data destructive)
Update firmware for array controller 4.50 should be last one
If you donâ t see drives under 3200, connect cable to SCSI controller on board you should be able to see drives
If no Replace firstly Cable, still problem SCSI Cage or Drives

[Jack Frei]

Sorry about the late reply but the machine I had this site bookmarked on had major issues.

About my server,this is a test box so not a high priority though I do want to get it up.

The drives do flash so I knew ithe cage and drives were getting power.

I hooked up the drives to the internal SCSI adapter and the drives wre recognized and worked fine (I installed an operating system with no problem). Therefore, the drives, cage and cables are fine.

I upgraded the 3200 fireware to version 4.5. Controller still did not recognize the drives.

I erased the array using the Smartstart which did not help. When I did an assisted setup using Smartstart the drive's green lights blinked but the controller did not see any drives. I cannot think of anything else to try.

I think the 3200 is shot.