Installing drives in a 320 Supermicro SCA box?

[Santilli]

Hi
How do you do this?
I have 2 drives I'm trying to install, and, I think they need to be formatted. They pretty much freeze the computer.

The SCSI id range is 1, 6. I assigned them, 4 and 5. Still no joy. On boot, nothing. I thought the SCA box assigned the scsi id numbers in the range????

s

 

[Santilli]

Keep in mind, that the original install was a FUBAR, and the raid is assigned I drive, so, everytime a drive is installed, on boot, it's assigned c, and fails to boot. This includes a removeable drive, like a Flashdrive...
s

 

[Fushigi]

If your SCA box is assigning SCSI IDs, you should probably de-assign IDs on the drives themselves. Try just removing all of the drive assignment jumpers from the drives. I guess that would make them ID 0.

Alternately (and doubtful), check the drive's spec sheet to see if there's a different jumper setting to allow external assignment of the address.

 

[Pradeep]

Enclosure should allow you to set ranges, either 0-4, or 7-11, something like that. It then assigns drives id#s based on which slot in the enclosure the drive is in.

 

[P5-133XL]

If the problem is a RAID Furbar to the extent that you can't boot or install an OS you might consider a SCSI LLF which should remove the problem.

 

[Santilli]

Thanks.
It's assigning range 1-6. I'll pull the jumpers.
I can't get the machine up with the drives installed, to format(suspect the machine is assigning C drive, and trying to boot from that:same thing happens when I try and boot with my flash memory card installed).

If I format the drives using the converter, and then install them in the box, maybe that's the problem?

Thanks

s

 

[iGary]

Correcto mundo. The SCA drive rack will auto-assign SCSI IDs in one of the two ranges that you set (low IDs versus high IDs). All drives will need to be jumper free, though, or you will "add" to the jumper setup that the SCA drive rack has assigned (e.g. -- 0001 jumper + 0010 SCA auto-assignment = an effective 0011).

I would highly recommend that you low-level format empty SCSI drives before putting them to use -- this means new or used drives. Clearing all the recorded data (file data, file system, partition, etc) from all available sectors AND testing them to see if they are error free is simply a good thing, even if it takes a while.

 

[Santilli]

Thanks Gary:

Formating questions:

Should I assign a drive letter to the drive, prior to putting it in the SCA Box?

I still can't seem to get the machine too boot with the formatted drive in place. Doing a dynamic disk with one of the drives, to see if that helps.

Part of the problem is not having a C drive.

I just dont' feel like doing all the changes until I get the other drives in...
s

 

[Santilli]

Could also be SCSI ID conflicts. My raid is on the same controllers, and they are drives 1-4.

How do you set the range to the higher range?

Thanks

s

 

[Santilli]

That should have been:
"How do you set the SCA box to the higher scsi ids?"

s

 

[Splash]

How do you set the SCA box to the higher scsi ids?

As I recall, there are a couple of jumpers on the back of the SCA rack unit: One for enable/disable of SCSI bus termination, one for low/high address range so that you can have two SCA rack units on one SCSI bus. The backcover comes off to reveal the fan and circuit board. Look in the owner's manual (which you can download from Super-O in PDF format).

Formating questions:

Should I assign a drive letter to the drive, prior to putting it in the SCA Box?

It doesn't matter. Normally, you do NOT need to put SCSI ID jumpers on the SCA drives that plug into this SCA chassis.

I still can't seem to get the machine too boot with the formatted drive in place. Doing a dynamic disk with one of the drives, to see if that helps.

Part of the problem is not having a C drive.

It sounds like you don't have the boot settings in the BIOS setup correctly.

You need to select the correct adaptor (SCSI, ATA, network, USB, etc) and make sure that the SCSI host bus adapter is setup to boot from proper drive (SCSI ID, LUN). Configuring a dynamic disc set is definitely the last thing you do, since Winders has to be fully installed and running -- preferably with the latest Service Pack and so forth-- when you define a dynamic disc set. If you have more than one SCSI channel in that machine, make sure you positively know which channel is what.

If you are sure you will only be booting from one drive (or array), one thing you should consider doing is to set the boot setting to where your SCSI channel is the *only* available bootable channel. I don't know what your BIOS allows, but if it says something like this when you bring up the "Boot" section, translate the following to the equivalent for your BIOS:

Example:

• First Boot: SCSI HBA
  Second Boot: NONE
  Third Boot: NONE
  Search For Other Bootable Drives: NO

 

[Splash]

Example:

• First Boot: SCSI HBA
  Second Boot: NONE
  Third Boot: NONE
  Search For Other Bootable Drives: NO

Those settings above would be the final boot order settings, as, of course, you will be booting from a CD-ROM to install the O/S.

So, during O/S instalation, you might have the following boot settings:

• First Boot: CD/DVD-ROM on IDE channel 0
  Second Boot: SCSI HBA in Slot 6
  Third Boot: NONE
  Search For Other Bootable Drives: NO

 

[Bozo]

Doesn't the SCSI adaptor have to have the INT 13 bit set to make it bootable.
Also, some SCSI adaptors must be told that they are bootable (this is done with the adaptors BIOS program). If it's RAID this is done after the
array has been built.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Santilli]

Well, my bios doesn't seem to be that detailed.

Anyway, I did change the settings, but, I think it's an id conflict.

Does anyone have handy the Gem 318 Manual, or where on Supermicros site it might be?

I've been looking all over, and can't find it.

Thanks

Greg

 

[Bozo]

Is this it?

http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/chassis/3U/SC832_SC833_1.0.pdf


Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Onomatopoeic]

...Does anyone have handy the Gem 318 Manual, or where on Supermicros site it might be?

GEM318 is simply a SCSI *chipset* made by QLogic, which Supermicro uses in their drive racks to allow hot-plug functionality. In the SCSI drive racks, the GEM318 uses SCSI ID "6" to perform its functions. Note that SCSI ID 7 has highest priority of all SCSI IDs, 8 has lowest. Highest to lowest priority: 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8.

The items in question would be either the CSE-M34S or the CSE-M35S. The manuals for both can be found at:

• [list:665e4b7e52]
  
  
  
  CSE-M34S
  http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/chassis/mobile_rack/CSE-M34.pdf
  
  
  
  
  CSE-M35S
  http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/chassis/mobile_rack/CSE-M35.pdf
  

[/list:u:665e4b7e52]

 

[Onomatopoeic]

GEM318 is simply a SCSI *chipset* made by QLogic

Actually, not a chipset, but a single integrated circuit.

Anyway, the manual should have come with the drive rack. They've always been with every unit I've received -- including with full computer chassis units that had them integrated at the factory.

 

[GIANT]

Absolutely NONE of your SCSI hard drives should have any jumpers installed whatsoever. Once they are installed into the drive carriers, just plug them into consecutive slots starting with the first one.

Just to make it absolutely clear what's going on, only plug one drive in at a time for low-level formatting.


By the way, what mobo are you using?

Mfgr:

Model:


How many SCSI channels to you have? This would include channels integrated into the mobo as well as any SCSI host bus adapters plugged into the PCI expansion bus.

 

[Santilli]

Supermicro X5DA8.

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/E7505/X5DA8.cfm

Is that left to right?

s