Assistance with IBM Xseries 346

[wilder7bc]

Hello,

I have a x series 346 IBM server. I had it all setup but decided I did not want to have the hard drives mirror. I went into the scsi system configuration and then went into the AIC-7902A and AIC-7902B I deleted out the mirror image arrays by selecting and then choosing D for delete.

I then rebooted and every since I am getting this screen:

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=ekn5ty&s=5

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Now before I did this everything was working, I had spent about 5 hours the night before looking for a way to get windows server 2008 R2 to install and finally found drivers and got it installed and it was running flawlessly. I just had decided I didn't need fault tolerance and would have liked more hard drive space for storage.

I found it from the following link finally:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...p-win2k8-on-ibm-x346-does-not-find-raid-drive

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http://download.cnet.com/AIC7902W-win-x64-zip/3000-18492_4-164150.html

or search cnet/google for: AIC7902W.win_x64.zip

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Everything was working great but now something has changed and I do not know how to fix it. I updated the BIOS and ran the xseries 346 server guide. All the menus come up, I can get into everything it just will not boot up and install windows anymore. I know the disk and all the hardware is fine because the server guide and other dvd work and this is brand new dvd I just had installed windows server 2008 r2 on before.

So it has to be a configuration issue or something I deleted from the configuration. I went back into it and chose reset to default but none of that is helping now.

Not sure what to do this is my first time working with ibm servers these where given to me by work to setup a home sandbox and use for educational purposes.

Needing some help if possible.

Thanks,

Brian

 

[wilder7bc]

I finally go the server guide to work by using a ps/2 mouse. From there I started it and in the raid section it started to setup a logical drive under host 2 which there it actually found all my drives. Not sure why I could not do this manually through the bios or maybe I was just missing something. It says its initializing the drives now but its been going a bit.

I am not sure I have the fix yet but I am on to something.

 

[wilder7bc]

Still working on this. I am running the server guide again, and I got ahold of a copy of windows server 2003 that I can install if needed.

Right now its synchronizing host 2 with the logical drive 1. I studied a lot of theory on Server 2008 R2 but I am really new to hardware and I am trying to learn. Its one thing to read about LUN and arrays and understand what raid 0, 1, and 5 is.

However, when you start dealing with hardware and older hardware to boot well its certainly an eye opening experience.

So anyway will post again and see if synchronizing thing works. I rather not even have raid to tell the truth but until I figure out a work around I am just trying to get back to the way I was.

It may be that server 2008 r2 is the issue and making it harder so if that's the case having a copy of windows server 2003 should help me trouble shoot that.

 

[wilder7bc]

Well it was a simple fix. I had written windows server 2008 R2 on the wrong side of the DVD after that initial install and so every time I put it in after that it was upside down.

The fix was simply to burn another DVD and put it in right side up now everything works.