RAID windows setup won't see it.

[hughejars]

Hi People
The system Intel Motherboard SE7501BR2
Processor - xeon 2.8 Ghz
DDR ECC ram 4Gbytes
On board RAID Adaptec AIC-7901a(U320)

I've been tinkering for a few days with limited success.
The server POST boots fine and the RAID utility loads fine, so I've configured 4 scsi drives to work RAID-0 (no fault tol.) formatted and set the drive to bootable.
Insert the Windows disk and start the setup process, but I'm told no hard drive can be found.
I've downloaded Adaptec drivers (old and newer one) and pressed F6 and tried using them with no success.
So in desperation I installed a IDE drive and loaded Windows to that, which has no problem loading, detecting and setting up the SCSI RAID device with the drives as I set them up.
Surely if Windows can detect the the RAID array once setup it should detect the array during the setup process?!
Any idea whats going on here?

Many thanks
Phil (sitting here with all hair ripped out)

I'm studying hard every day, so why is the learning curve appear to be heading downwards?

 

[kmcferrin]

Not really. The installer environment is not the same as the full-featured environment. You have to use the F6 method to include the drivers (Windows XP, 2000, 2003) or inject the drivers via the GUI install (Vista, Win7, 2008 and 2008 R2). There's no way around it I'm afraid, but at least with the newer OSes you don't need to use a floppy disk to install the drivers.

Simply having the drivers available at install time usually isn't enough, there usually is a process to extract the relevant driver and INF files to make a mass storage driver floppy. You may have to go through this process to extract the required files.

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCTS:Hyper-V
MCTS:System Center Virtual Machine Manager
MCTS:Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Server Administrator
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator
Certified Quest vWorkspace Administrator

 

[goombawaho]

That's why a floppy drive is still nice to have around. That (F6) and BIOS updates as well.

 

[kjv1611]

Phil,

It sounds like you MAY have tried to get it to install the wrong drivers. The drivers for Windows setup/install are different than the typical drivers. Make sure you got the correct specific RAID drivers for the motherboard, those for the windows install/setup process, and then make sure you have them put on the floppy drive correctly. Many of them include applications that'll put everything in the right place on the floppy for you. Otherwise, I'm sure there are various tutorials online to tell you how to do this.

You could be doing everything right, and perhaps it's a compatibility issue, particularly if it's brand new hardware, but I'm guessing your issue somewhere in my first paragraph. Not b/c I have any reason to doubt (or not doubt for that matter) your abilities, but rather we all make mistakes, and it's VERY easy to download the wrong drivers, for instance.

 

[kjv1611]

Of course, another option you can try if you want would be to slipstream the drivers into the Windows install disk, burn a new copy of it, and give it a try.

There are various driver packs out there that may well include your RAID drivers already. You can take a look here for example if you want:

http://www.ryanvm.net/msfn/

 

[hughejars]

Thanks for the info guys, nothing easy there.
I may go for a new SCSI board into the RAIDIOS PCI slot, being Ultra 320 though may not be cheap. I'll let you know how I get on.
Cheers
Phil

I'm studying hard every day, so why is the learning curve appear to be heading downwards?

 

[kjv1611]

Why go with a PCI SCSI card at all?

1. You'll be limited by the PCI bus.

2. SCSI drives are pretty much goners now - use either SATA or SAS drives now.

Only way you're going SCSI nowadays is with outdated, probably used, hardware, that isn't as likely to last very long. But whatever you want to do, it's your decision of course.

 

[danomac]

2. SCSI drives are pretty much goners now - use either SATA or SAS drives now.

Only way you're going SCSI nowadays is with outdated, probably used, hardware, that isn't as likely to last very long. But whatever you want to do, it's your decision of course.

I'm guessing you've never had to rebuild an array with a failed SATA drive? There's a pretty good chance that one of the other drives in the array will fail during the rebuild.

It also depends on the application. I flat out refuse to use SATA drives in any of our servers because of the difference in reliability. Having backups & raid is one thing, but restoring them every couple of years when the drive fails (I had a server with SATA, one drive failed, then another failed during a rebuild. Never again.)

There's a reason that SATA drives are cheaper, they do not have the same life expectancy is it's SCSI cousin, in most cases 1/4 - 1/3 of the life expectancy.

If you have to store massive amounts of data it's different, but for a server that hosts several services (AD, FTP, DNS, DHCP blahblah) I would never use SATA drives.

We have had no failures of SCSI drives at all over the last 12 years (*knocks wood*) and several SATA drives were lost in the last five years (I've lost count.)

SCSI drives aren't going anywhere yet. SATA has a long way to go on the reliability side of things.

 

[kmcferrin]

He wasn't advocating SATA over SCSI, he was pointing out that parallel SCSI is all but dead. The alternatives would be SATA or SAS (Serial Attached SCSI).

And I agree, I would never deploy a real server with SATA drives because of the reliability difference (in a test lab, that's a different story). But my preference is SAS.

We have had no failures of SCSI drives at all over the last 12 years (*knocks wood*)

You either work in a magical place or don't have many servers. Most datacenters for our customers are replacing multiple failed SCSI disks each week. But then with thousands of servers, I guess that's bound to happen.

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCTS:Hyper-V
MCTS:System Center Virtual Machine Manager
MCTS:Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Server Administrator
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator
Certified Quest vWorkspace Administrator

 

[hughejars]

Thanks for the advise there, but finances don't allow an immediate update to the latest greatest, hope you understand. Plus SCSI's always been reliable for me, I've already had 1 SATA disaster. This is a private inhouse server where speed is not the priority, but ensuring our files are kept well backed up and safe.
Cheers
Phil


I'm studying hard every day, so why is the learning curve appear to be heading downwards?

 

[goombawaho]

Hard drive failure doesn't keep your data safe, so as mentioned, for a server environment, you should use "professional" hard drives which USED to be SCSI and is now SAS.

Old IDE drives and now SATA drives are for civilian use. Not saying you can't do it, but the other drives are meant for 24 hour use over a period of years.

Regardless of which drive you use - hardware mirroring is almost a must. Don't rely on software mirroring if at all possible.

 

[kjv1611]

I'm guessing you've never had to rebuild an array with a failed SATA drive? There's a pretty good chance that one of the other drives in the array will fail during the rebuild.

Actually, I have rebuilt a couple RAID arrays of SATA drives with no issue. Not many, but a couple at least, that I can specifically recall. One was my own that I rebuilt at least twice. A RAID 3 array on a PCI SATA 1.5 card. I used it, b/c it was cheap, worked, and relatively at the time performed well.

Yes, kmcferrin was correct in what I was saying.

I've never used SCSI or SAS drives, myself, as the cases I've actually worked on - my own, other homes, and small businesses, none of them could really justify the costs over SATA. If your operation is large enough in the need for data storage and servers, then yeah, I'd definitely go along that path SCSI - old stuff, SAS - new stuff, b/c they are built to higher standards than SATA drives.... the whole deal of you get what you pay for goes here.

Thanks for the advise there, but finances don't allow an immediate update to the latest greatest, hope you understand.

I know I understand fully on the finances part. And I'm sure anybody can understand there. If you've already an existing solution, or you've already got part of the hardware, then you can just grab whatever other pieces you need - whatever the technology is - and go with it.

Here's a thought: If you already have the SCSI drives and the mainboard, check to see what expansion slots you have. If you have only PCI slots, then that's what you have to use. If you have a PCI-X slot, then you could go with that, and at least open up the bandwith limitations by a noticeable amount. And for that, you can likely find a good solution on eBay at the least... probably some other PC part sites, still... I'd check eBay, Amazon, and MAYBE Craigslist. I'd imagine you don't necessarily need new stuff that'll last 5+ years right now.