Topic: Raid on SME

[Andrew Rosenau]

I am attempting to install SME 6.0--retail on a computer system with an Accusys 7500 raid kit, with 2 western digital 120GB drives. When I attempt to install SME before it gets to the installation process it says "Drive access error, although all the lights indicate the raid system is fuctioning properly. Although I am currently installing windows 98 and it is formatting the drives and appears to be working just fine. Any ideas please??????

[Andrew Rosenau]

The specific error i am getting is  

hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 {DriveReady SeekComplete Error}
hda: dma_intr: error=0x04 {DriveStatusError}

hda: DMA disabled
ide0: reset: success
hda: lost interrupt

although windows 98 installs and works just fine---any ideas?

[Henrik]

Andrew Rosenau wrote:
>
> The specific error i am getting is  
>
> hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 {DriveReady SeekComplete Error}
> hda: dma_intr: error=0x04 {DriveStatusError}
>
> hda: DMA disabled
> ide0: reset: success
> hda: lost interrupt
>
> although windows 98 installs and works just fine---any ideas?


Hi there,

If you do a search in the forums here, you will find that getting these IDE raid cards will need a lot of expert knowledge to get it running if at all possible which i think in this case are not. (Is this raid card on the HCL for redhat 7.3? i think not)

I would suggest that you create 2 striped drives in your raid bios, and then choose "software raid" when you are installing the server. The performance will be just as good i think, because your raid card actually also is "software raid"

/Henrik

[Henrik]

Henrik wrote:
>
> Andrew Rosenau wrote:
> >
> > The specific error i am getting is  
> >
> > hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 {DriveReady SeekComplete Error}
> > hda: dma_intr: error=0x04 {DriveStatusError}
> >
> > hda: DMA disabled
> > ide0: reset: success
> > hda: lost interrupt
> >
> > although windows 98 installs and works just fine---any ideas?
>
>
> Hi there,
>
> If you do a search in the forums here, you will find that
> getting these IDE raid cards will need a lot of expert
> knowledge to get it running if at all possible which i think
> in this case are not. (Is this raid card on the HCL for
> redhat 7.3? i think not)
>
> I would suggest that you create 2 striped drives in your raid
> bios, and then choose "software raid" when you are installing
> the server. The performance will be just as good i think,
> because your raid card actually also is "software raid"
>
> /Henrik


Hmm... it can only do Raid 1?? Then i would put the drives on your normal ATA controller.

[guestHH]

"SME 6.0--retail"

is supported by your official Mitel partnes I guess....

[Andrew Rosenau]

yes i know mitel 6 has support i was just wondering if anyone here knew. This is not a raid card but i raid system I was told to buy by somehere. It is also fully supported by redhat. Here is the address to the equipment I have   http://www.accusys.com.tw/7500.htm

Thanx

[Amazing Iceman]

I would suggest you to try a different slot, and make sure that you don't have an IRQ issue; make sure you are only using IRQs 5, 10, 11. Only use 14 and 15 if you have your embeded IDE controller disabled.

Also, I had a similar error the other day when I installed 6.0 with ServiceLink, and the issue was solved when I remove a memory module, which apparently was causing the problem. After that, everything went ok...
Andrew Rosenau wrote:

[Amazing Iceman]

I would suggest you to try a different slot, and make sure that you don't have an IRQ issue; make sure you are only using IRQs 5, 10, 11. Only use 14 and 15 if you have your embeded IDE controller disabled.

Also, I had a similar error the other day when I installed 6.0 with ServiceLink, and the issue was solved when I remove a memory module, which apparently was causing the problem. After that, everything went ok...

[Andrew Rosenau]

I can not try a different slot as this is an Accusys raid module, it plugs into your onboard IDE controller. The website I can on an earlier post is a link to what I got. I will try the memory module.

[Andrew Rosenau]

do you think i should just use software raid???

[dave]

Andrew,

If your hardware is on the redhat HCL it should be supported.  I don't know if you've considered this but you might try looking on the redhat support forums for issues related to your hardware.  Since SME is based on redhat, finding someone else using redhat that has encountered similar problems may be able to at least point you in the right direction.  Then, with the RH version of the solution, one of the SME guru's here should be able to provide some direction on how to implement the fix using SME's capabilities - or let you know if it can't be done under SME.  

Personally, even though I know the software raid setup can funciton and be very reliable, I'd stick with hardware raid everytime.  The biggest reason is recovery.  With software raid, you have to perform some manual processes to rebuild the mirror.  With hardware raid (atleast those I'm familiar with), if you lose a drive, all you need to do is replace the bad one and the mirror will rebuild automatically.  Another reason to go with hardware raid is hardware raid handles the process of writing the data to both drives, software uses system processor time to do it.  On a light duty system, it's not a big deal but on a system that has lots of disk write activity (especially in a database environment) it can have a definite impact on performance.


Just my 2 cents...

[Andrew Rosenau]

Well I've tried everything I can think of, and have just posted in the Redhat forums--waiting for a response. The only thing left that I am going to try is to use 2 smaller drives and see if it works.

[Paul]

You may try writing "0's" to the drives (including the boot sectors).  I have read somewhere in this forum that windows does strange things to the boot sector on the drives and sometimes makes it difficult to install SME.

Just a thought.

Good luck,

Paul

[Andrew Rosenau]

I've actually had this problem before i even put anything on the drives--fresh from factory. SME is going to be getting me a new iso image to use that will hopefully clean up the problem. Thanks

[Kelvin]

For Andrew:

>hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 {DriveReady SeekComplete Error}
>hda: dma_intr: error=0x04 {DriveStatusError}

Ask your supplier for a firmware upgrade to the ACS7500. Your current firmware will not work reliably with most of the newer drives out there (eg. Seagate ST380011A and others in the same family) but will work fine with older model drives.

For Henrik:
>If you do a search in the forums here, you will find that getting these IDE raid
>cards will need a lot of expert knowledge to get it running if at all possible which i
>think in this case are not. (Is this raid card on the HCL for redhat 7.3? i think not)

If *you* searched the forums here, you would have found other references to the Accusys unit and learnt that these are NOT RAID cards but self contained RAID subsystems that are mirrored in hardware and totally Operating System independent (ie. No driver required). Your OS only ever need to support the IDE controller that will connect to the ACS 7500.

>I would suggest that you create 2 striped drives in your raid bios, and then
>choose "software raid" when you are installing the server. The performance will
>be just as good i think, because your raid card actually also is "software raid"

It's very dangerous to be so "matter of factly" about a product you obviously have never seen nor looked up. And to quote Peter Green :-

>Only use RAID0 (striping) when your data is worthless. Only use RAID5
>(software) when your CPU/performance is worthless.

Kelvin