Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 03:03:20 -0500 From: Omar Thameen <omar@clifford.inch.com> To: Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org, freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Mylex AcceleRAID 150 problems [solved] Message-ID: <20010205030320.A29449@clifford.inch.com> In-Reply-To: <200101310824.f0V8ONe04278@mass.dis.org>; from Mike Smith on Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 12:24:23AM -0800 References: <20010131031815.A26661@clifford.inch.com> <200101310824.f0V8ONe04278@mass.dis.org>
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On Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 12:24:23AM -0800, Mike Smith wrote: > > # mlxcontrol status -v mlxd0 > > mlxcontrol: couldn't get controller/drive for /dev/mlxd0 > > mlxd0: online > > You haven't created the /dev/mlx0 control node (bug in the application > not telling you this). Thanks - one thing that went right the other day. > > I read up on the booting process and figured I must be getting past > > boot[012] to the loader since I get the "press enter to boot immediately" > > autocount prompt, so the problem must be when it tries to read "kernel". After many days of trial & error, mailing list searching, Mylex tech support calling, and rebooting (the latter making me feel like an NT admin), I believe I've found the source of the problems. To summarize, about 3 out of 5 times, boot-up would hang at the "hit enter to continue" prompt just before reading the kernel. This abruptly changed to drive 0:0 being dead to the AcceleRAID 150 controller. To make matters worse, the Ezassist software kept hanging when I tried to access the failed drive (which was spinning and seemed fine). First problem: I had an old video card in the server which was not Plug-n-Play. This caused IRQ conflicts which I think were the reason for my frequent hangs with the Ezassist software. A new $25 card has fixed this issue. I've concluded that the more serious issue of the system hanging just as it tried to read the kernel is due to the fact that I didn't initialize the logical drive. This isn't as dumb as it sounds. The problem was that I actually believed the Ezassist software, which, after creating the RAID array stated: "RAID drive configuration is successful. You may utilize this drive immediately." I took that to mean, "Go ahead and install the OS," but apparently, initialization does something very important to the logical drive. This takes on the order of hours, depending on the size of the drives - mine were 2x9G and took 1-2 hours. For my information, what does the initialization do? Is the initialization step documented somewhere that I missed (it's not in the Mylex Install guide)? I thought that newfs'ing the filesystem would take care of things. Finally, before I put this issue to rest and get on with my life, I'll share some other things I learned along the way for the list archives (in light of putting up a separate web page of my own). - Mylex tech support were very good. They didn't find the source of my problem, but they had plenty of good ideas, and were willing to escalate the issue to an engineer. Their hours are very convenient at 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PST, and they were always immediately available on the phone (no holding). Just as impressive was that they knew about FreeBSD, didn't once try to blame the OS, and didn't jump to the "reinstall everything" solution that seems to solve many Windows problems. - To format the drive using the RAID card, you have to change the SCSI id of the drive so the controller thinks it's a new drive, format it, then change it back. - Back up your RAID configuration to a floppy. If the config gets wiped from the card, it does read it from the hard drive, but be safe. - I upgraded the BIOS, firmware, and Ezassist software with no problems (as Mike stated it should go). To be safe, I disconnected all drives to eliminate any potential for communication problems while doing this. Warning: in my case, a config file backed up with an earlier version of Ezassist was not readable by a later version, so back up your config immediately after upgrading. This may not be true and may simply be related to my issues. - The latest version of Ezassist (2.02-00) shows the drive capacity to 3 decimal places; earlier versions (1.00-16, which came on the card) had only one. This is important because if you try and replace a failed drive in the future, that original 9G IBM Ultrastar may provide 8.542G of space, but another 9G IBM Ultrastar may provide only 8.511G. If you don't want to upgrade the software on the card, you can put the latest Ezassist on a bootable (Win95/98) disk and run it from the floppy. - Mylex tech support told me that the biggest factor in matching drives is size. The array will perform as well as the worst drive. Obviously, identical drives are ideal, but if you can't do that, match as much as possible, making sure your size is equal to or greater than the existing drive. Hope this helps someone else out there! Omar To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-scsi" in the body of the message
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