netfinity 5600 2

[sphinx1611]

i have recently aquired an ibm netfinity 5600 8664 3ay server from a dealership.
this piece has been decomisioned but never"opened up".
i have been trying to install an operating sytem (xp pro)but it keeps telling me that there are no hard drives installed.
i am starting to get a little frustrated with this thing.
it has a gig of ram and a 667 mhz pIII processor so i am curious how this thing will work.
if anyone could help me i would appreciate it.
thanx

 

[Davetoo]

Well, did you install any hard drives? The drives go in the front. You probably see blanks in it now, pull one out and see if there are any drives in it.

Probably not, they usually don't come with them.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[sphinx1611]

i have 5 18.2 gig hard drives installed in the front of the server and i can use the fdisk from the win98 diskette.
i did this with my laptop before i installed xp pro and it worked fine but this server is a different issue. i don't have much experience with servers.
so i turned to the experts. haha

 

[Davetoo]

Ok, you need to have the drivers for the controller that you're using to control the hard drives. When you go to install it should say to press F6 to load drivers, do that and put in the driver for the controller you're running.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[sphinx1611]

the first time i tried that i found a driver on the ibm website and tried to install it but it said that xp has a better version. i tried to install it anyway and i am still looking at the same thing.

 

[dcs97]

Hey;
The Chrysler Netfinity's (which you have) had Novell loaded. Before they decomed them they killed the RAID and set all the drives to defunct. You have to:
1)Reset the drives back to factory using the CTRL-I setup(Ready Status)
2)Go to IBM's website and download the RAID Support CD

http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-39723

. Create a disk as per the website's instruction and then boot the system with that disk, it will allow you to define a RAID Array. The array will be seen by XP as one disk (depending on how you define your array) when you load the drivers using the F6 prompt. You should then be ready to roll.

 

[sphinx1611]

well... i've been sitting here all day tring to install anything.
i tried windows 2000 server and got a little further. i used the servraid support cd to define the array- all ok.
installed the 2000 cd and booted up, installed the raid drivers(f6) install found a hard drive and said that it installed the o/s and needed to reboot. server booted up and started installing 2000 again. this keeps happening every time i try it. when the cd is copying files it is missing 3 files - mshtml.dll, wbemcomn.dll,msexch40.dll
i am not sure if these files are causing these results but maybe someone here could help me.
i am glad to find so many knowlegeable people.

 

[sphinx1611]

woo hoo.
finally got it.
had to change the config to boot from the hard drive.(duh)
still not too sure about the array of the hard drives though.
i have 5X18.2 gig. hard drives and the C: drive is only showing 56 gig. ??? i don't think i defined the array quite right. this is all new to me so i don't know how to get all of the storage out of the hard drives that i can.
i would greatly appreciate it if someone could guide me through it.
thanx for all of your help so far.

 

[catorze]

Working as designed for an auto-configured Logical Drive - 4xHDD in RAID5 logical drive (net 3xHDD storage space) and a hot spare. If you don't care about redundancy, you can manually configure a RAID0 logical drive and get the full 5xHDD storage, but if a drive dies, you're pooched.

 

[sphinx1611]

so what you are saying is that i did it right?

 

[Davetoo]

The auto-config will provide a very good failover design to protect data. The way it's configured you can have two drives fail and you're still ok. When the first drive fails, the hot spare kicks in automatically. If another drive fails, you still have RAID protecting you. That gives you time to replace the failed drive(s).

If you're not as concerned about data protection and want more drive space, bring the hot spare into the RAID which will give you 5x18.2 - 18.2 total space.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[dcs97]

Before you install an o/s and get it all set up with your data etc, you should do some research on RAID. You can configure the 5 drives to look like anywhere from one drive to 5 drives, depending on what you want to do. RIAD is a system that sets up more than one drive in such a way that if one drive fails you won't loose any data, the other drives contain the data spanned across the drives (ie - redundant array). The IBM support CD allows you to chose what ever level of redundnacy you want. Once you have defined the array you cannot change it without loosing the o/s you have installed, well worth learing about RAID before you get to commited with you install.

 

[catorze]

Almost...not all RAID configurations provide redundancy (RAID 0), and RAID 5 intervally stripes data and parity information across the drives so that if a drive fails, the RAID controller can view the data that is available and using the parity information can calculate the missing pieces to provide you with a view to your data.

But your point is well taken...reading before installing takes less time than re-installing.

 

[sphinx1611]

i have been doing some reading and i am glad that i have because i was going to reconfigure and reinstall the o/s.
i have read about the raid 0 and 5 and right now i have raid 5 which is what i think is best for what i need it for.
i thank you all for you advise and input.
if not for this site i would prolly still be trying to install and o/s.
oh ya. just one more question.
i was able to get windows 2000 server to recognise the raid drives but xp pro would not. is it possible to install xp pro on my system. i looked on the ibm site and when i build the computer to find drivers i come up with nothing for xp.
thank you.

 

[dcs97]

http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/license.do?filename=pc_servers/25r5032.exe

This is the driver for XP Pro - it worked for me ... should work with the IBM RAID 3L or 4L, your system should have one or the other.

Good luck. BTW, what are you using the server for?

 

[sphinx1611]

mostly just for storage.

 

[ABS3]

I have 3 of the decomissioned servers and have successfully installed Win Server 2003 on one of them. I tried to install the processor from one of them into the other and install the OS again and find that I have a problem with the seconday IDE channel having an IRQ problem (shows that IRQ15 is unavailble). I checked to see that there is no IRQ conflict, and there is none - not even when showing hidden devices. Is there any ideas on what to do to make the system run clean. I did remove the second processor and VRM chip and still have the problem...%^&*!! These work great for AV and web filtering servers by the way.