PowerEdge 2400 - RAID-1 - Windows NT - Not finding my drives...

[DannyTEM]

Hello Everyone,

I have had a fun couple of days wrestling with the problem, and I am now at a stage where I have to ask for help!

Let me say that until yesterday I had no experience whatsoever with this type of project - PC's I am fine with, servers area whole different ball game.

I am setting up Windows NT Server for a small network. We have a Dell PowerEdge 2400. Using Google I have managed to do the following:

1. Set up a container using Raid-1 using the 2 16.9 Gb drives, both show up as Quantum Atlas V18 16.9Gb models (we have 3 but one is not being picked up at all, but Raid-1 is fine for our application.

I have recently done the above as it took me a while to realise it needed to be done (who calls a virtual drive a container? ). Up until that point I was getting "Setup did not find any hard drives installed on your computer in Windows." So I thought setting up the array would solve the problem, but it has not.

Is there anything I have missed? The system has an Adaptec Controller as well as PERC 2. Not sure whether they are supposed to function together - maybe someone can shed some light? I even tried downloading PERC 2 from Dell and during the initial NT Server setup pressed S to load it (Win2k's version of F6'ing at setup I gather) in addition to the Adaptec controller (as the mass storage device) but setup did not prompt me to do anything, I still went straight to the "Setup did not find..>" message.

Sorry for the rambling email, but if anyone can help me out I would be most appreciative.

Dan

Dan Morgan -

http://www.ski-review.com

 

[technome]

Sounds like you have the incorrect driver or you are chosing the wrong choice of driver, if mutiple choice, for the raid or Adaptec card, from the floppy. If you pressed F6, at the right time, the setup will stop and specify to place the floppy disk in A: drive. Windows should get the driver and ask if another driver is needed, basically the same routine for the second driver to be added, as the first.

Windows will not proceed if an incorrect driver is found on the floppy, thus "Setup did not find.....".
Perhaps you have a driver for the wrong version of Windows?
Verify the exact model of both the Adaptec and raid card.

 

[DannyTEM]

technome,

Many thanks for your time here.

On re-reading my first post I think I incorrectly say I have 2 cards. I certainly only have one PCI installed, and this is a PERC 2/Si (which I believe is made by Adaptec).

This seems to initilize fine and allows me to setup a container. Then, when I boot from CD using the NT Server disk it autodetects what it calls an Adaptec Controller, as the mass storage device.

If I continue from here I get : "Setup did not find.....".

If instead of continuing I press S to specify a third party driver (I do not think its F6 with NT), it correctly goes to the A: Drive as asked, shows the Dell drivers I downloaded, allows me to load them, shows both the Adaptec Controller and the new Dell Raid PERC drivers in a list and Enter again produces "Setup did not find.....". The file which I downloaded and copied to a floppy is located here -

http://support.euro.dell.com/uk/en/filelib/download/index.asp?fileid=R46862

- Is this the right one for PERC 2/Si and NT?

Many thanks,

Dan

Dan Morgan -

http://www.ski-review.com

 

[technome]

Link is partial.

Forgot it was NT, Nt drivers will be different than the general files for raid cards. Best to call Dell directly, you probably will need to be be directed to the correct drivers.

 

[DannyTEM]

Hey,

Thanks again.

>> Link is partial.

Do you mean, the link is truncated in the post? If you click it the actual click through url works, although you have to specify the server or the unique hardware key (in this case 3TV960J).

The file summary is:

File Title: SCSI RAID: Adaptec PERC2, , PERC2/Si, , PERC3/Si, , PERC3/Di, Driver, Windows NT 4.0, Multi Language, Multi System, v.2.7.1.4944, A11
File Date: 20/08/2002
Library: SCSI Raid

Description:

This is the Microsoft NT4 device driver for PERC 2, PERC 2/Si,
PERC 3/Si, and PERC 3/Di controllers.

Additional Information:

The Dell V2.7-1 program delivers a new release of software code that applies to PERC 2 and integrated (PERC 2/Si, PERC 3/Si, & PERC 3/Di) controllers. This software code release contains firmware for PERC 2 and integrated controllers, device drivers, and management utilities.

I'll try and give them a call later on today but if someone can confirm or veto the file system above then that would be great!

Dan

Dan Morgan -

http://www.ski-review.com

 

[DannyTEM]

Grrrr, I just read

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=pes_wnts&message.id=2583

Which basically tells me I do have to press F6, even though it is not prompted, and although the procedure is nearly identical it works this way.

Dan Morgan -

http://www.ski-review.com

 

[DannyTEM]

Now I am having problems with partitioning.

For disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on perc2, which shows here as 17,352 Mb doesn't show any partitions, just 8gb of unpartitioned space. What's happened to the other 9gb? And the other disk?

Also trying to partition the 8gb anyway, as either FAT or NTFS because it is too large - is this a problem with NT or something more sinister?

Thanks

Dan


Dan Morgan -

http://www.ski-review.com

 

[DannyTEM]

I could not find anything relevant from searching so I set it to install anyway on what was available. It got through to the stage where it starts copying files to the hard drive.

It failed to copy a few files, namely, afadisk.sys & afacomm.sys but it was happy to skip these and carried on. It copied aload of other files and when at 100% asked me to remove any floppies and CDROMs and restart. Which I duly obliged, but upon the restart, it goes to the OS choice screen, invokes it OK, but then I get:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (blah blah blah) INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

Can anyone see any connections/possible solutions? Do I need to load additional drivers?


Dan Morgan -

http://www.ski-review.com

 

[technome]

The driver appears to be correct, according to the machine number 3TV960J.

The stop error your getting , results from the adapter not being recognized, the drivers are not being added to the Os.
Again, somehow it may not be the correct driver, but unlikely.

Did you go into the perc 2 setup, originally, and setup the raid ? Refer to the manual, should be downloadable from Dell.

 

[DannyTEM]

Did you go into the perc 2 setup, originally, and setup the raid ? Refer to the manual, should be downloadable from Dell.

The PERC 2/Si was originally on this system, i.e. when I first got access to the system and was booting and I followed the prompt (Ctrl + A) it took me to the PERC 2/Si configuration (this was why I was a little confused as to why I had to have the driver diskette when installing NT).

I looked at all the options this gave me and initialized the drives and setup the RAID-1. I tried to find some docemtation on this process online in case I did it wrong but everything I can find refers to the DOSA CD which I do not have - if someone can point it out (link) then that would be great.

If setup accesses the adapter when copying files across in the initial setup stage then its weird that it cannot find them after the mid-setup reboot.

Dan Morgan -

http://www.ski-review.com

 

[DannyTEM]

Some more details - just done another check inside the system, and I can confirm that the Integrated Hardware Key Connector is present, as is a DIMM in the socket for the Optional controller.

Dan Morgan -

http://www.ski-review.com

 

[DannyTEM]

Still not got any further with this - if anyone can offer any alternative routes I can take, no matter how obscure, then it would be greatly appreciated.

Dan

Dan Morgan -

http://www.ski-review.com