Old IBM Ultrastar drive 1

[brokenhalo]

Hey guys,

I bought an old eServer and it came with 2 removable hard drives... I am trying to install CentOS 4.4 and during the install it tells me that there are no hard disks detected (they are obviously there) and that I need to manually load the drivers. I have no idea where to get the drivers (I have googled until my fingers hurt)!!!!! The first HD is an IBM Ultrastar model: DDYS-T18350 and the other is an IBM ? model: ST318404LC... Both are SCSI drives that should automatically be recognized but they aren't. Just to make sure it wasn't Linux, I also tried installing WinXP and WinServer03 to no avail. Any help in finding these drivers would be GREATLY appreciated. I also tried calling IBM and of course that was no help. Thanks in advance guys!

Brad L. - MCP

"If the doctors told me I had 5 minutes to live, I would type faster.

 

[wahnula]

What is make/model of the SCSI host controller and are you sure the SCSI BIOS drivers are loaded? Do you have another SCSI device that you can use to check the SCSI host controller? Just because the drives are physically present does not mean they are in working condition. Is the SCSI bus properly terminated?

During POST, you should see the SCSI BIOS appear and identify its devices. Does that happen?

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[edfair]

Your first drive is IBM, the second is seagate, and specifically 18gb, low voltage differential, SCA.

If you are lucky you may have an Adaptec controller and [CTRL][A] during boot may bring up the BIOS for the card and allow you to get access to some diagnostics and a bus scan. Or the controlling details may be in the M/B BIOS.

Does your caddy have a keylock associated with it. Some require the key to be set to active to allow the drive to spin up and be recognized. Others have a switch that controls the SCA chassis.

You may also want to check the details of your operating system. It may want IDE only.


Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[brokenhalo]

No, I don't have any hosot controllers nor do I know where to get them. The machine is pretty old, but I want to use it as a backup and an FTP server. If someone could be a little more specific on what I need to get this thing running thats would be awesome... And to answer you question edfair, CentOS isn't IDE only. Thanks a million guys!

Brad L. - MCP

"If the doctors told me I had 5 minutes to live, I would type faster.

 

[edfair]

You have a host controller somewhere. That is the intermediate device for talking with SCSI hard drives. It may be integrated on the M/B.
You may have a 50 conductor ribbon cable connecting the M/B to a drive cage. If so, tell us where it plugs in, expansion card or M/B.
Sorry about asking the questions, but until we know what is in the box we have no prayer of figuring out how it works.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[brokenhalo]

Okay, I have a HD cage with 2 HD's and two cables that goes from the cage to the M/B, one of the cables is the power cable. The other cable is data but it isn't the average 50 pin cable... The end attached to HD cage resembles a SATA connector and the opposite end that goes into the M/B has a 68 pin connector, not too sure what the cable is called. I hope this helped some. I will try to get some pictures today at some point if I can. Thanks again for the help.

Brad L. - MCP

"If the doctors told me I had 5 minutes to live, I would type faster.

 

[wahnula]

Does it look like this?

If so then you've got SAS (Serially attached SCSI) drives.

If someone could be a little more specific on what I need to get this thing running thats would be awesome

You probably need to supply the drivers for the onboard controller (whatever it is) before the OS can see the drives.

Any clue as to the make/model of the mainboard?

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[edfair]

Suspicion that the other end is a HD50 cable. If you look carefully at the end of the connector and it resembles the "D" outline of the Centronics printer except smaller, about 3/4" long you have HD.

The 68 pin M/B connector locks it into one of the wide SCSI versions.

Is there another hard drive involved that might have the OS installed? Otherwise the drives should be standalone and recognized at power up, unless the drives have gone bad or the SCSI controller has been crippled in the CMOS.

It wouldn't be that surprising if the hard drives were dead. They die easier than the rest of the parts in the machine. Or at least in my experience with the later SCSI.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[brokenhalo]

Okay... wanhula, it doesn't look like that at all...
edfair I believe you are right, I'm pretty sure it is an HD50 cable. Also, I'm not too sure if the hard drives are bad or not, they very well could be. Even if they are bad, I would suspect that at least one of them would at least tell me that they are there (but I could be wrong).
And as i said earlier, there are two hard drives, but as far as I know, neither of them have any OS installed on them, and even if they do, I will be reformatting them to install CentOS.
If they are dead, what can I do??? These aren't regular drives and I'm not sure where I might be able to order them.

Brad L. - MCP

"If the doctors told me I had 5 minutes to live, I would type faster.

 

[edfair]

My personal choice would be to forget the multiple SCA drives and disable the SCSI controller on the M/B. Next step would be to buy an ADAPTEC 2940U off ebay for under $20 and buy a couple of 68 pin drives that will match with it. Will require a 3 connector ribbon. Or you could go with a 2940/2940U which is a 50 pin SE controller and put 2 50 pin drives on it.
This is assuming that there are PCI slots available and that the intended OS will accept the controller. Should, but you never know.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[brokenhalo]

Thanks for the idea... but... the machine doesn't even have PCI slots... There are two slots that resemble PCI express but not quite. The machine is an old IBM eServer Xseries 330, I think from around y2k or somewhere in that era. It has 2 gigs of ram and pentium 3 *cough* Like I said, it's not much, but I'd like to use it as a learning tool. Any more suggestions would be great.

Brad L. - MCP

"If the doctors told me I had 5 minutes to live, I would type faster.

 

[brokenhalo]

Here is a website I found with some pictures of the machine itself. The two white bars toward the back of the machine are the slots I said resembled PCI express....

http://avmsupport.com/avmsupport/ibm.html

Thanks again guys!

Brad L. - MCP

"If the doctors told me I had 5 minutes to live, I would type faster.

 

[edfair]

Try a google search on the model number and you will find some information. But You'll also find that there is propriotory hardware involved and rather specialized SCSI controllers that are going to make it impossible (IMHO) for it to ever be a bootable system using anything other that what mother machines provided.

There comes a time in every technicians life when he/she recognizes that there is not enough time left in life to follow every curious trail.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[brokenhalo]

hmmm.... I think where theres a will theres a way. I know I would be better off spending $1000 and building a new server, but this thing has got me spellbound.... Thanks alot for your help and I will get back to you with the results of my seemingly neverending quest to bring the donosaur back to life... Any more suggestions would be taken sincerely.

Brad L. - MCP

"If the doctors told me I had 5 minutes to live, I would type faster.

 

[wahnula]

==>"There comes a time in every technicians life when he/she recognizes that there is not enough time left in life to follow every curious trail."

Words of wisdom Lloyd, words of wisdom...

And, brokenhalo, you could build a far superior machine not for $1000, but $300 or less. I can understand your fascination with the machine but even if you get it running it will be a dog...with fleas.

Look around on eBay, there's lots of old gear there, you might even find a working version of the server you're trying to fix.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[brokenhalo]

haha alright guys I get the point.... Thanks to the people that posted to try and help my cause and to these forums!!!!!!!

Brad L. - MCP

"If the doctors told me I had 5 minutes to live, I would type faster.

 

[smah]

For testing, try an older distro like Fedora Core 4. At some point (2.6 Kernel, I believe) support was dropped for some Adaptec raid controllers (particularly for the ones called 'megaraid).

 

[edfair]

One of the hits when I googled the series number was a $35.00 offer on ebay. I didn't look.

It would be cheaper to buy a whole, operating, machine to play with than to buy a hard drive. And you might have some good spare parts.

I considered experimenting with SCA drives when I acquired a crashed HP netserver but took my own advice and parted it out for what few items were usable in the real world. I did save the drive cage in case I ever need to be able to hook a SCA drive up.

The server market has some really solid equipment. Pick it up and you'll understand. High quality parts, in a high quality case, to last a long time. But those who buy them also get the service contract. They can't affort the parts costs on a T&M basis.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[brokenhalo]

Alright, I think I'll try fedora, I heard elsewhere that it might do the trick. I knew this damn cursed server was gonna be a pain when I bought it and I guess I enjoy a challenge. I have already bought all new cables for it, new (used but good) ram, and several other things for this machine. I guess thats why I'm so damn determined.

Brad L. - MCP

"If the doctors told me I had 5 minutes to live, I would type faster.

 

[edfair]

Perserverance is good. And you bought it for the challenge, so enjoy the challenge and the education it brings.
You could get a 68 pin SCSI drive to try as the boot drive to temporarily get around possible SCA drive issues. That should work. If it does, then you can try back with the SCA stuff.
My experience with the HP netserver was to install RedHat 6.0 or 6.2 and IIRC the drives identified during BIOS linkages. But it had an Adaptec chipset on board and that is different from yours.