GA-7N400 PRO2 + Compaq SCSI Array

[bigmikes]

Hi all

Have just brought the GA-7N400 PRO2 motherboard and have had some difficulty getting the 2 9.1 Compaq Scsi drives that came with my old server and was wondering why I can't get them to work. The drives are in a Compaq drive array and the pci card is a Compaq 2-SL Array controller I have turned booting from the SCSI controller card in bios on.

I used to have an old p2 450 that i can still make it work on and the drives start up just before windows starts up and initiallises and but on the new motherboard can not even make a single light or anything.

Windows recognises that there is a SCSI controller there and has got the drivers all updated but that seems to be all.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

[Chris]

try overclockers australia (http://overclockers.com.au) , I remember someone having a semi-similar problem there some time ago.. could be wrong, but it gives you something to go on..

[bigmikes]

yeah just checked that yesterday and they had lots of things on scsi problems but not many like myn

[unix]

It does sound odd, but tell me more about the SCSI card.. is it a RAID card or just a normal SCSI card with the Compaq name on it.. Without knowing too much about the card, it could be that if the drives were in a RAID 0, then you need to redo the volumes and the ARRAY setup in the SCSI bios upon start up.. If not, make sure that the drives are set to ID 0 and 1. Also, verify that the SCSI card is made too boot to drive 0. And also verify that your drives are terminated properly..

Aside from those obvious things.. I just need to know more about how you setup your last system with your card.. Good luck..

[MR_60]

The Smart 2-SL is an array controller (RAID).

Make sure your BIOS is set to allow BIOS extensions, boot from SCSI, allow add-on BIOS etc. Basically keep fiddling about with the settings.

Unless the BIOS on the card starts up, it just won't work as an array controller.

[bigmikes]

will find specs of card tonight but I do know that to get the drives working properly either as raid 0,1 or 5 then i have to install the drives on my server and then use the smart start disks. Have also played around with most settings in the motherboards bios and can't seem to be able to make it do anything more.

As for the actual card it is definately an actual SCSI controller card that came with the server when i brought it from from my dads work.

I have no idea about how to set up the controller to start on disk 1 as cannot access the actual SCSI bios when i start up. But when i use my old pentium 3 it works perfectly fine and don't need to use the terminator(i think as it is in a scsi drive bay holder thing, that is fully hot swapable)

Also with it set up in my old machine I just plugged it all in and it went no screwing around with setttings or anything.
Thanks

[bigmikes]

the pci to SCSI is definately a Compaq 2-SL SCSI controller if that helps

[unix]

Well, all SCSI's need to be terminated, either manually or with aut-termination on the back-plane or via the cable having the end of it with auto-termination.. As for the bios on the mobo, all you should have to do is just set the boot option/priority to SCSI 1st and then whatever you want..

Then on the very beginning of your post with everything else, you should get an option of F4 or F5 or whatever to access the SCSI bios.. That is where you can set everything up. Including which SCSI ID to boot with and setting up the RAID 0,1,5 etc..

Good luck though, not sure why it isn't coming up if everything is set up right..

[Agent666]

does your card show up during the boot sequence at all?

if it doesnt try disabling all the other onboard controllers on your motherboard and see if it shows up then.... as it will be the only device avaliable to boot to......

Often the other controllers get priority when it comes to initialisation during boot and they often 'take' resources (IRQ DMA addresses etc) that the older scsi card requires to work properly.....

I have had similiar issues with my Promise SX4000 as it doesnt work in my IC7G motherboard as the ICH5R controller and the Silicon Image controller clash with it at boot...... and any disks attached to it are not initialised properly during boot and cannot be seen by the OS.....

[bigmikes]

yeah thanks agent666. I have disabled my silicon image controller and changed some other setting and after a couple of hours of trying new cables etc it finally worked.