hostRAID, AIC-7901, disable?

hostRAID, AIC-7901, disable?

[murray evans]

We have recently aquired a new Dell Precision 670 workstation, on which
we intended to install linux, (Suse 9.1). 
In the install, is reports it can not find any hard drives.
We think we have tracked this problem down to the AIC-7901 hostRAID
SCSI controller. From what I we can gather, linux no longer has
drivers for hostRAID hardware. We don't care about having RAID, just
a working system, so we would be content to simply disable the 
hostRAID. the problem is, the setup tool does not have any option
to disable hostRAID.

Has anyone come across a solution? Is there a driver I don't know of?
Is there a way of disabling hostRAID?

*PS: From the SuSe install, when we try to add the appropriate SCSI
module for the AIC-7901, it fails.

Re: hostRAID, AIC-7901, disable?

[Colin McDonald]

Cntl+A into the SCSI bios & disable it. 

Try that. 




On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:04:08 +0000, murray evans <m.evans@rdg.ac.uk> wrote:
> We have recently aquired a new Dell Precision 670 workstation, on which
> we intended to install linux, (Suse 9.1).
> In the install, is reports it can not find any hard drives.
> We think we have tracked this problem down to the AIC-7901 hostRAID
> SCSI controller. From what I we can gather, linux no longer has
> drivers for hostRAID hardware. We don't care about having RAID, just
> a working system, so we would be content to simply disable the
> hostRAID. the problem is, the setup tool does not have any option
> to disable hostRAID.
> 
> Has anyone come across a solution? Is there a driver I don't know of?
> Is there a way of disabling hostRAID?
> 
> *PS: From the SuSe install, when we try to add the appropriate SCSI
> module for the AIC-7901, it fails.
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>

Re: hostRAID, AIC-7901, disable?

[murray evans]

Colin McDonald wrote:

> Cntl+A into the SCSI bios & disable it.
> 
> Try that.
> 
> 


Like I say, the setup tool has no option to disable it. this includes 
both the bios, the the Adaptec SCSISelect tool (i.e. Ctrl A). Although
the instructions do insist it is there, we've had a very thorough look,
and it's not.


> 
> 
> On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:04:08 +0000, murray evans <m.evans@rdg.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>> We have recently aquired a new Dell Precision 670 workstation, on which
>> we intended to install linux, (Suse 9.1).
>> In the install, is reports it can not find any hard drives.
>> We think we have tracked this problem down to the AIC-7901 hostRAID
>> SCSI controller. From what I we can gather, linux no longer has
>> drivers for hostRAID hardware. We don't care about having RAID, just
>> a working system, so we would be content to simply disable the
>> hostRAID. the problem is, the setup tool does not have any option
>> to disable hostRAID.
>> 
>> Has anyone come across a solution? Is there a driver I don't know of?
>> Is there a way of disabling hostRAID?
>> 
>> *PS: From the SuSe install, when we try to add the appropriate SCSI
>> module for the AIC-7901, it fails.
>> 
>> -
>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: hostRAID, AIC-7901, disable?

[Doug Ledford]

On Mon, 2004-12-13 at 21:15 +0000, murray evans wrote:
> Colin McDonald wrote:
> 
> > Cntl+A into the SCSI bios & disable it.
> > 
> > Try that.
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> Like I say, the setup tool has no option to disable it. this includes 
> both the bios, the the Adaptec SCSISelect tool (i.e. Ctrl A). Although
> the instructions do insist it is there, we've had a very thorough look,
> and it's not.

In some BIOSes, you go into the integrated peripherals section of the
setup and it will have a spot for the SCSI controller and you can select
any of RAID/SCSI/disabled.  Obviously, SCSI will enable the chip but not
put it under the control of the RAID hardware.  Check your BIOS and see
if it has anything like that to disable the RAID portion on that
controller.

> 
> > 
> > 
> > On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:04:08 +0000, murray evans <m.evans@rdg.ac.uk>
> > wrote:
> >> We have recently aquired a new Dell Precision 670 workstation, on which
> >> we intended to install linux, (Suse 9.1).
> >> In the install, is reports it can not find any hard drives.
> >> We think we have tracked this problem down to the AIC-7901 hostRAID
> >> SCSI controller. From what I we can gather, linux no longer has
> >> drivers for hostRAID hardware. We don't care about having RAID, just
> >> a working system, so we would be content to simply disable the
> >> hostRAID. the problem is, the setup tool does not have any option
> >> to disable hostRAID.
> >> 
> >> Has anyone come across a solution? Is there a driver I don't know of?
> >> Is there a way of disabling hostRAID?
> >> 
> >> *PS: From the SuSe install, when we try to add the appropriate SCSI
> >> module for the AIC-7901, it fails.
> >> 
> >> -
> >> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> >> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> >> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> >>
> > -
> > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> > More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
-- 
  Doug Ledford <dledford@redhat.com>
         Red Hat, Inc.
         1801 Varsity Dr.
         Raleigh, NC 27606

Re: hostRAID, AIC-7901, disable?

[linuxraid]

Hello,
> We have recently aquired a new Dell Precision 670 workstation, on which
> we intended to install linux, (Suse 9.1).
> In the install, is reports it can not find any hard drives.
> We think we have tracked this problem down to the AIC-7901 hostRAID
> SCSI controller.

We had the same problem with the adaptec 39320 in a Dell Server.
The proper driver for the adaptec U320 scsi should be aic79xx
and it really is.
The aic79xx driver of the Kernel 2.4.28 didn't recognise
our scsi adapter. So we downloaded one from adaptec which
was labeled as *minimally tested*, but this one works:
http://download.adaptec.com/scsi/linux/aic7Yxx-2.0.12-6.3.9-linux-2.4.tar.bz2
or for kernel 2.6 series
http://download.adaptec.com/scsi/linux/aic7Yxx-2.0.12-6.3.9-linux-2.6.tar.bz2

This tarballs contain the source for following drivers:
aic79xx (version 2.0.12)
aic7xxx (version 6.3.9)
They are more recent than the original ones in the kernel.

If you don't like kernel-compiling there's a chance to find
a precompiled one on sites like
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/drivers_by_product.jsp?sess=no&language=English+US&prodkey=ASC-39320D-R&cat=%2fProduct%2fASC-39320D-R

> From what I we can gather, linux no longer has
> drivers for hostRAID hardware. We don't care about having RAID, just
> a working system, so we would be content to simply disable the
> hostRAID. the problem is, the setup tool does not have any option
> to disable hostRAID.
> Has anyone come across a solution? Is there a driver I don't know of?
> Is there a way of disabling hostRAID?
>
> *PS: From the SuSe install, when we try to add the appropriate SCSI
> module for the AIC-7901, it fails.

Re: hostRAID, AIC-7901, disable?

[mike_rothon]

> We had the same problem with the adaptec 39320 in a Dell Server.
> The proper driver for the adaptec U320 scsi should be aic79xx
> and it really is.
> The aic79xx driver of the Kernel 2.4.28 didn't recognise
> our scsi adapter. So we downloaded one from adaptec which
> was labeled as *minimally tested*, but this one works:
> http://download.adaptec.com/scsi/linux/aic7Yxx-2.0.12-6.3.9-linux-2.4.tar.bz2
> or for kernel 2.6 series
> http://download.adaptec.com/scsi/linux/aic7Yxx-2.0.12-6.3.9-linux-2.6.tar.bz2

Did these updated modules work with HostRAID enabled? I haven't been sucessful 
in compiling them yet, which version of SuSE do you have?

> This tarballs contain the source for following drivers:
> aic79xx (version 2.0.12)
> aic7xxx (version 6.3.9)
> They are more recent than the original ones in the kernel.
> 
> If you don't like kernel-compiling there's a chance to find
> a precompiled one on sites like
> http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/drivers_by_product.jsp?sess=no&language=English+US&prodkey=ASC-39320D-R&cat=%2fProduct%2fASC-39320D-R
> 

Strangely all the pre-compiled modules are for SuSE 8.0 and 8.2. There is one 
for 9.0, but it still has a 2.4 kernel. SuSE have released an update for SLES9, 
but of course its a different kernel variant and doesen't work with SL9.2 :-(.


>>Has anyone come across a solution? Is there a driver I don't know of?
>>Is there a way of disabling hostRAID?

Did you find an answer to this? I have searched and searched the BIOS, the 
technical docs, and the web and have no solutions.

Re: hostRAID, AIC-7901, disable? - FIXED

[mike_rothon]

I will prefix this message by stating that I am not a Linux expert in any way! 
This is especially true of Kernel and module matters.

Finally, however and after many hours of trying I believe I have found a good 
fix to run u320raid on a SuSE linux box!

Tucked away on the Adaptec web site is an IBM download for SLES9, which is 
claims to be "released". What isn't mentioned is that this driver **seems to 
be** compatible with SuSE Linux 9.1.

You can find an image of the driver update disk here:

http://www.adaptec.com/ibm/downloads/released_serveRAID7e_index.html

Instructions to make the disk are in the adaptec user guide.

If you haven't had experience of driver update disks before (as I hadn't) there 
is a good article here:

http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2001/12/hmeyer_driver_update.html

Importantly however for SuSE to find the driver you need to rename the directory 
from i386-SLES3 to i386-9.1 and the subdirectories in the update.tar.gz file to 
match your kernel version. CAVEAT - this is slightly risky - as it leads to a 
"tainted" kernel.

With the stock kernel on the 9.1 CD's it appears the driver is compatible 
although there is a tainted message during boot.

Feedback is welcomed, particular about the advisability of this solution.

Mike Rothon.
Certisa Ltd.
www.certisa.com