Poweredger server question
Greetings Managed to buy a Dell poweredge 2950II server. What an odyssey to set up the bios!!! I have 2 drives I got with the machine - - - they were part of a Raid 5 array. Now there are only 2 drives (will never by a raid 5 array by definition) and I need some way of formatting them so that I can turn them into a Raid 1 array. (Its all hardware raid on this box.) Anyone with any idea on how to do that to scsi drives when the controller won't let me change their settings and I have no other pox to put them in. (Connector is a wee bit different than for SATA!) Dee
| From: o1bigtenor <o1bigtenor@gmail.com> | I have 2 drives I got with the machine - - - they were part of a Raid 5 | array. | Now there are only 2 drives (will never by a raid 5 array by definition) | and I need some way of formatting them so that I can turn them into a Raid | 1 array. (Its all hardware raid on this box.) | | Anyone with any idea on how to do that to scsi drives when the controller | won't let me change their settings and I have no other pox to put them in. | (Connector is a wee bit different than for SATA!) So many warning signs. But I'll ignore them. 1) why won't the controller let you change the settings? That seems wrong. Maybe you are missing some admin software. 2) Desperate attempt: Can you boot from a live USB stick? If so, can you "see through" the RAID controller to the raw disks? If so, perhaps you can scribble a copy of /dev/zero over the raw disks. The RAID config information is somewhere on that raw disk and if you can obliterate it, surely the controller will let you re-configurate. If you cannot do it with the contoller you have, buy a SCSI controller from the surplus/used source. They ought to cost a small amount since everyone is ditching SCSI. Overwriting a modern high-capacity disk can take perhaps half a day. But I suspect your disks are neither modern nor high-capacity.
Using the service tag, go to support.dell.com and read the manual(s), drivers, firmware etc. Press control C or R at boot up to access the raid config. Don't forget to check / upgrade the firmware. From: o1bigtenor Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2015 23:33 To: GTALUG Talk Reply To: GTALUG Talk Subject: [GTALUG] Poweredger server question Greetings Managed to buy a Dell poweredge 2950II server. What an odyssey to set up the bios!!! I have 2 drives I got with the machine - - - they were part of a Raid 5 array. Now there are only 2 drives (will never by a raid 5 array by definition) and I need some way of formatting them so that I can turn them into a Raid 1 array. (Its all hardware raid on this box.) Anyone with any idea on how to do that to scsi drives when the controller won't let me change their settings and I have no other pox to put them in. (Connector is a wee bit different than for SATA!) Dee THIS MESSAGE IS FOR THE USE OF THE INTENDED RECIPIENT(S) ONLY AND MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT IS PRIVILEGED, PROPRIETARY, CONFIDENTIAL, AND/OR EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE UNDER ANY RELEVANT PRIVACY LEGISLATION. No rights to any privilege have been waived. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, retransmission, dissemination, distribution, copying, conversion to hard copy, taking of action in reliance on or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient and have received this message in error, please notify me by return e-mail and delete or destroy all copies of this message.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 If there's a hardware RAID controller it may need its battery changed (if it has one). Some RAID controllers keep the config in NVRAM, so /dev/zero may not help that much. If the drives are recognized by the OS it may be better to use OS RAID, and eliminate the dependency on potentially flakey, unreplaceable hardware. - --Bob. On 17/08/15 07:48 AM, Brent Kimberley wrote:
Using the service tag, go to support.dell.com and read the manual(s), drivers, firmware etc. Press control C or R at boot up to access the raid config. Don't forget to check / upgrade the firmware.
From: o1bigtenor Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2015 23:33 To: GTALUG Talk Reply To: GTALUG Talk Subject: [GTALUG] Poweredger server question
Greetings
Managed to buy a Dell poweredge 2950II server.
What an odyssey to set up the bios!!!
I have 2 drives I got with the machine - - - they were part of a Raid 5 array. Now there are only 2 drives (will never by a raid 5 array by definition) and I need some way of formatting them so that I can turn them into a Raid 1 array. (Its all hardware raid on this box.)
Anyone with any idea on how to do that to scsi drives when the controller won't let me change their settings and I have no other pox to put them in. (Connector is a wee bit different than for SATA!)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.20 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Ensure confidentiality, authenticity, non-repudiability iEYEARECAAYFAlXSA88ACgkQuRKJsNLM5eoYwwCdGBi2BtPGs6hKsM9gAhAZ/fyi 4cUAoP8n7E58vyhSNT+TThpiyjg1ymlG =eSBG -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 10:54 AM, Bob Jonkman <bjonkman@sobac.com> wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
If there's a hardware RAID controller it may need its battery changed (if it has one). Some RAID controllers keep the config in NVRAM, so /dev/zero may not help that much. If the drives are recognized by the OS it may be better to use OS RAID, and eliminate the dependency on potentially flakey, unreplaceable hardware.
You have found the problem - - - the OS does NOT recognize the drives at all. If I could have found the hard drives from the OS I would not have bothered using hardware RAID - - - prefer the software RAID myself and have been using it for a while so am somewhat comfortable with it. Dee
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 6:48 AM, Brent Kimberley <Brent.Kimberley@durham.ca> wrote:
Using the service tag, go to support.dell.com and read the manual(s), drivers, firmware etc. Press control C or R at boot up to access the raid config. Don't forget to check / upgrade the firmware.
Not a bad idea - - except Dell manuals are a joke. There is absolutely no information that I could find using both Duckduck and ms google on how to setup the BIOS (and its absolutely NOT intuitive!!). Don't you just love computers that require half a dozen training courses to use! Upgrading the firmware is also a very good idea but to do so I first have to install MS windows on the machine as the upgrade package is a .exe file. That's sort of interesting when they tell you about RHEL, SUSE and a third Linux operating system option for the server itself. So although I would love to upgrade the firmware I'm not sure how I can actually do it - - - that may be why it hadn't been upgraded previously! Thanks for the ideas! Dee
On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 10:33:49PM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
Greetings
Managed to buy a Dell poweredge 2950II server.
What an odyssey to set up the bios!!!
I have 2 drives I got with the machine - - - they were part of a Raid 5 array. Now there are only 2 drives (will never by a raid 5 array by definition) and I need some way of formatting them so that I can turn them into a Raid 1 array. (Its all hardware raid on this box.)
Anyone with any idea on how to do that to scsi drives when the controller won't let me change their settings and I have no other pox to put them in. (Connector is a wee bit different than for SATA!)
Certainly some raid controllers have an initialize option you can apply to disks to clean them so they can be reused in a new raid. No idea which raid controller model you are dealing with. -- Len Sorensen
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Lennart Sorensen < lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 10:33:49PM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
Greetings
Managed to buy a Dell poweredge 2950II server.
What an odyssey to set up the bios!!!
I have 2 drives I got with the machine - - - they were part of a Raid 5 array. Now there are only 2 drives (will never by a raid 5 array by definition) and I need some way of formatting them so that I can turn them into a Raid 1 array. (Its all hardware raid on this box.)
Anyone with any idea on how to do that to scsi drives when the controller won't let me change their settings and I have no other pox to put them in. (Connector is a wee bit different than for SATA!)
Certainly some raid controllers have an initialize option you can apply to disks to clean them so they can be reused in a new raid.
No idea which raid controller model you are dealing with.
Its a Perc 5/i if that helps. Dee
o1bigtenor wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
No idea which raid controller model you are dealing with.
Its a Perc 5/i if that helps.
Ah yes. Those. It Might Be Dead. (A past gig had a lot of Dell servers, an annoying number of which were suffering from dead RAID controllers and/or remote consoles, while the IBM, HP, and Sun hardware generally just kept working.) However, the various hardware RAID controllers I've had to deal with always had a BIOS screen (usually a pause during boot telling you hit some key combo to enter RAID config) and you need to get into that to tell it to forget the old setup and usefully configure (mirror, stripe, or JBOD) the drives it has now. This will also confirm it does actually see them. After that's done, it should present its virtual drive(s) to the OS. -- Anthony de Boer
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 08:00:26AM -0400, Anthony de Boer wrote:
o1bigtenor wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
No idea which raid controller model you are dealing with.
Its a Perc 5/i if that helps.
Ah yes. Those. It Might Be Dead.
(A past gig had a lot of Dell servers, an annoying number of which were suffering from dead RAID controllers and/or remote consoles, while the IBM, HP, and Sun hardware generally just kept working.)
However, the various hardware RAID controllers I've had to deal with always had a BIOS screen (usually a pause during boot telling you hit some key combo to enter RAID config) and you need to get into that to tell it to forget the old setup and usefully configure (mirror, stripe, or JBOD) the drives it has now. This will also confirm it does actually see them. After that's done, it should present its virtual drive(s) to the OS.
Apparently the Perc 5/i can't do JBOD. The standard work around appears to be to create a 1 disk RAID0 on each drive and use those as the disks. -- Len Sorensen
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:04 AM, Lennart Sorensen < lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 08:00:26AM -0400, Anthony de Boer wrote:
o1bigtenor wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
No idea which raid controller model you are dealing with.
Its a Perc 5/i if that helps.
Ah yes. Those. It Might Be Dead.
(A past gig had a lot of Dell servers, an annoying number of which were suffering from dead RAID controllers and/or remote consoles, while the IBM, HP, and Sun hardware generally just kept working.)
However, the various hardware RAID controllers I've had to deal with always had a BIOS screen (usually a pause during boot telling you hit some key combo to enter RAID config) and you need to get into that to tell it to forget the old setup and usefully configure (mirror, stripe, or JBOD) the drives it has now. This will also confirm it does actually see them. After that's done, it should present its virtual drive(s) to the OS.
Apparently the Perc 5/i can't do JBOD. The standard work around appears to be to create a 1 disk RAID0 on each drive and use those as the disks.
Well - - I would not have thought of that. As I wanted 4 discs on a Raid 10 and 2 on a Raid 1 I think I am happy with how things have worked out. Now if this system craters then I do know that the next purchase will be a little different. I like the processors in this box but the bios is a royal pita and some of the other decisions make by the system designers choices do leave something to be desired. Thanks for the help and information! Dee
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:39:38AM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
Well - - I would not have thought of that.
As I wanted 4 discs on a Raid 10 and 2 on a Raid 1 I think I am happy with how things have worked out.
Now if this system craters then I do know that the next purchase will be a little different. I like the processors in this box but the bios is a royal pita and some of the other decisions make by the system designers choices do leave something to be desired.
Thanks for the help and information!
So does that work? You have disks now? -- Len Sorensen
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 11:03 AM, Lennart Sorensen < lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:39:38AM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
Well - - I would not have thought of that.
As I wanted 4 discs on a Raid 10 and 2 on a Raid 1 I think I am happy with how things have worked out.
Now if this system craters then I do know that the next purchase will be a little different. I like the processors in this box but the bios is a royal pita and some of the other decisions make by the system designers choices do leave something to be desired.
Thanks for the help and information!
So does that work? You have disks now?
Yes a working system (running OpenMediaVault). Am now having a lot of fun trying to figure out how to actually use a NAS box!!! Thanks again!
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 06:50:00AM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Lennart Sorensen < lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 10:33:49PM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
Greetings
Managed to buy a Dell poweredge 2950II server.
What an odyssey to set up the bios!!!
I have 2 drives I got with the machine - - - they were part of a Raid 5 array. Now there are only 2 drives (will never by a raid 5 array by definition) and I need some way of formatting them so that I can turn them into a Raid 1 array. (Its all hardware raid on this box.)
Anyone with any idea on how to do that to scsi drives when the controller won't let me change their settings and I have no other pox to put them in. (Connector is a wee bit different than for SATA!)
That would be SAS. SAS controllers can run SATA disks, but no the other way around.
Certainly some raid controllers have an initialize option you can apply to disks to clean them so they can be reused in a new raid.
No idea which raid controller model you are dealing with.
Its a Perc 5/i if that helps.
Well here is a handy video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5lGWdvJyS4 It seems you hit control-r to enter the raid setup when prompted, then in there there is a PD management tab (PD = physical disk I suspect) Looks like control-n is how to change tabs. I found a page that says if you see 'foreign' config present, then you can hit F2 on the controller on the VD management page and ask it to clear that. -- Len Sorensen
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:00 AM, Lennart Sorensen < lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Lennart Sorensen < lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 10:33:49PM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
Greetings
Managed to buy a Dell poweredge 2950II server.
What an odyssey to set up the bios!!!
I have 2 drives I got with the machine - - - they were part of a Raid 5 array. Now there are only 2 drives (will never by a raid 5 array by definition) and I need some way of formatting them so that I can turn them into a Raid 1 array. (Its all hardware raid on this box.)
Anyone with any idea on how to do that to scsi drives when the controller won't let me change their settings and I have no other pox to put
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 06:50:00AM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote: them
in.
(Connector is a wee bit different than for SATA!)
That would be SAS. SAS controllers can run SATA disks, but no the other way around.
Certainly some raid controllers have an initialize option you can apply to disks to clean them so they can be reused in a new raid.
No idea which raid controller model you are dealing with.
Its a Perc 5/i if that helps.
Well here is a handy video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5lGWdvJyS4
It seems you hit control-r to enter the raid setup when prompted, then in there there is a PD management tab (PD = physical disk I suspect)
Looks like control-n is how to change tabs.
I found a page that says if you see 'foreign' config present, then you can hit F2 on the controller on the VD management page and ask it to clear that.
Thank you very much!! This last bit of information was what enabled me to finish my system setup. So - - - procedure followed: 1. Ctrl R to get into the RAID utility 2. Use Ctrl-N to get to the Virtual Disk page 3. Move cursor to the line (controller) that has the word 'foreign' in it. 4. F2 will then take to where it asks if you want to initiailize and something else that I have now forgotten. With the initialization one can now set up a new array (in my case a RAID 1 (for data security)). So thank you all for your various tips and assistance - - - I now have a server with 6 disks running OpenMediaVault. (Now if there just were someway to get this ancient BIOS to recognize discs of great than 2 TB in size and if there were a way to update the BIOS without needing to run MS windows things would be real real good!) Dee
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:39:54AM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
This last bit of information was what enabled me to finish my system setup.
So - - - procedure followed:
1. Ctrl R to get into the RAID utility 2. Use Ctrl-N to get to the Virtual Disk page 3. Move cursor to the line (controller) that has the word 'foreign' in it. 4. F2 will then take to where it asks if you want to initiailize and something else that I have now forgotten.
With the initialization one can now set up a new array (in my case a RAID 1 (for data security)).
So thank you all for your various tips and assistance - - - I now have a server with 6 disks running OpenMediaVault.
(Now if there just were someway to get this ancient BIOS to recognize discs of great than 2 TB in size and if there were a way to update the BIOS without needing to run MS windows things would be real real good!)
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=16... says you can get the PE2950-020700CBIOS.exe file and put it on a USB bootable key with DOS (freedos should work) and use that to flash the BIOS. Pretty sure unetbootin can create such a thing for you. -- Len Sorensen
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 11:08 AM, Lennart Sorensen < lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:39:54AM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
This last bit of information was what enabled me to finish my system setup.
So - - - procedure followed:
1. Ctrl R to get into the RAID utility 2. Use Ctrl-N to get to the Virtual Disk page 3. Move cursor to the line (controller) that has the word 'foreign' in it. 4. F2 will then take to where it asks if you want to initiailize and something else that I have now forgotten.
With the initialization one can now set up a new array (in my case a RAID 1 (for data security)).
So thank you all for your various tips and assistance - - - I now have a server with 6 disks running OpenMediaVault.
(Now if there just were someway to get this ancient BIOS to recognize discs of great than 2 TB in size and if there were a way to update the BIOS without needing to run MS windows things would be real real good!)
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=16... says you can get the PE2950-020700CBIOS.exe file and put it on a USB bootable key with DOS (freedos should work) and use that to flash the BIOS.
Pretty sure unetbootin can create such a thing for you.
Oh goody - - - something else to figure out! Dee
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 06:50:00AM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Lennart Sorensen < lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 10:33:49PM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
Greetings
Managed to buy a Dell poweredge 2950II server.
What an odyssey to set up the bios!!!
I have 2 drives I got with the machine - - - they were part of a Raid 5 array. Now there are only 2 drives (will never by a raid 5 array by definition) and I need some way of formatting them so that I can turn them into a Raid 1 array. (Its all hardware raid on this box.)
Anyone with any idea on how to do that to scsi drives when the controller won't let me change their settings and I have no other pox to put them in. (Connector is a wee bit different than for SATA!)
Certainly some raid controllers have an initialize option you can apply to disks to clean them so they can be reused in a new raid.
No idea which raid controller model you are dealing with.
Its a Perc 5/i if that helps.
Certainly if you check in the control-r setup and don't see PD count of 2, then there is a problem with the controller detecting the disks. If it does show 2, then it should be fixable. -- Len Sorensen
participants (6)
-
Anthony de Boer -
Bob Jonkman -
Brent Kimberley -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Lennart Sorensen -
o1bigtenor