RAID Controller Will Not Start

J

JonElf

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Jul 5, 2004
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Here is the situation I just upgraded my CPU and because of this I had to update my BIOs, so I flashed it and installed the new CPU. When I booted back into Windows my storage drive (the one controlled by the RAID controller) did not show up under my computer or disk management. Under device manager there is a yellow question mark next to the RAID controller and it says "This device cannot start. (Code 10)".

Here is a list of the relevant specs;
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 upgraded to Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Motherboard: eVGA nForce 680i SLI 775 AR Version
RAID Controller: LSI MegaRAID SAS 8344ELP
Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit

The RAID controller only controls the storage array which consist of 4x750GB harddrives in RAID 5. The system drive is just a Raptor.

I have tried the following to no avail;

  1. Downloading new drivers and trying to reinstall them.
    • Windows just says driver is up to date.

  2. Reinstalling Windows with the controller unplugged then plugging it back in and trying to install the drivers there.
    • Windows detected the device and installed the drivers, but it didn't show up under disk management.
    • Tried to update the drivers to the newest one off LSI's site but it gave an error saying the device cannot start again.

  3. Booting Linux and checking to see if my storage array is still alright.
    • Linux detects it no problem, I can see all my files, read all my files and everything.
At first I thought it was because I flashed the BIOs on my motherboard, but if it was truly incapable it won't work in Linux would it?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
 
I've had a problem similar to this with my Adaptec controller card after I FUBAR'd some settings up in my array, so I called up their support to see what was up. I had similar undetection issues with my controller (Code 10) in Device Manager, as well. Apparently something happened to the controller that messed up its BIOS when I did a hard reset after my computer locked up from changing some array settings using Adaptec Storage Manager. The situation was pretty much a PEBKAC (Google that up ;)), and I fixed it through unplugging the SAS cords, having the OS detect the device again, flashing the controller to the latest firmware, clearing the NVRAM, and replugging the SAS cables back in. My OS didn't recognize the array as readable (it was RAW unformatted) but the array still existed in the controller level, so I had to use Runtime.org's GetDataBack software (excellent piece of software, by the way) and took all the data, dumped it to secondary storage, broke the array, and rebuilt it from scratch.

So, you could try flashing the controller (try plugging it into another computer and see if it's detected then without any disks plugged into it), but be careful of this, as with any flashing procedure. There are other risks as well, in my case, Adaptec support said that my old firmware revision used proprietary Adaptec methods of calculating parity while the newer firmware had shifted from this proprietary code to the standard Read-Solomon parity calculations, so there may be an issue of how the existing array handles writes after you flash the BIOS if that were the case.

But since you say that Linux detects the array just fine, I would probably guess it's a software issue in that the array isn't detected for whatever reason, probably from outdated drivers, perhaps?

You could try giving LSI support a ring and see if they have any idea what's going on with your controller card, if it's a similar situation as mine.

So I would recommend that if you were to change the firmware, which may fundamentally change how the controller handles read/writes (for better efficiency), that you back up the data if you can access the array, break it, and then rebuild it from scratch so there wouldn't be any issues from how the data was organized previously and after it's handled after a firmware update. It's one of those things that shouldn't be updated regularly, such as video card drivers, but only updated if there were issues.

Good luck, and I hope you can get at your data. :)
 
Sounds kind of similar however I was not messing around with any settings that had to do with my controller. The firmware and the drivers are both the latest updates also. I'll try just unplugging the cables and see if it can get just the card, although probably not, but I'll try anything just about now :p LSI also will not do anything for me since it's an OEM one that's supposed to go in HP workstations which I got from eBay. They made me call HP where my call got routed to about 10 different people and the person I got tried to tell me that the controller didn't even need drivers. Also I would really hope it doesn't come to having to back up all my data across... I don't even know how many DVDs. Thanks for your reply.
 
Nothing yet. I opened up Event Viewer to get some details on the error and it reports this;

Log Name: System
Source: megasas
Date: 8/21/2008 6:35:52 PM
Event ID: 25
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Jon-Desktop
Description:
The driver has detected a device with old or out-of-date firmware. The device will not be used.

However like I said before it is the newest firmware :/ So I have no clue. Is there a way to disable this and tell Vista to stop being... well, you know.
 
Could it be something a new motherboard will resolve? If that's the case I'll just go buy another one :/
 
New motherboard Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R and nothing will even display on the monitor when the card is plugged in. :confused::mad::confused::mad:
 
JonElf said:
New motherboard Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R and nothing will even display on the monitor when the card is plugged in. :confused::mad::confused::mad:
Click to expand...

Some boards/chipsets are quirky when it comes to a graphics card plugged into the primary x16 PCI-e slot and a RAID controller on any secondary PCI-e physical x16 slot. You should try to find a board with integrated graphics or a PCI graphics card and plug in the RAID card into the primary x16 slot to see if any graphics/controller conflict on the x16 slot is the cause of the problem with your DS3R.
 
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