XP / Vista will not install on SAS Hard Drive

fuch · December 19th, 2007, 02:15 AM

* Edit 01/08 *
For anyone who stumbles across this thread:
The 73gb Fujitsu turned out to fail Fujitsu's old SDIAG diagnostics test (http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/c...utilities.html).
The Foreign Metadata error was corrected in the SAS3442E's latest FW/BIOS package http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/prod...2er/index.html. Whew. After building the array Vista recognized it and installed onto it like a champ.
* /Edit *

I have an LSI SAS3442E-R pci-e card ( SAS1068E chipset ). I have updated the firmware on it and my Asus P5E bios recognizes the MAX3073RC (73gb Fujitsu) I have connected to it. The cards bios (which I can access by holding "ctrl c") also recognizes it.

Ideally (the whole reason I bought this setup) I want to boot XP x64 from this drive. I loaded LSI's XP x64 drivers onto a floppy diskette for F6 installation. After I install the LSI driver from the disk XP prompts me to hit "Enter" to install Windows. This is where a message: " Examining 70002 MB at Id 38 on bus 0 on lsi_sas... " is displayed briefly before XP tells me I have not one available hard drive to install XP onto.

After playing around with different bios settings and googling forever I gave up and tried Vista Ultimate x64. I loaded the proper drivers when given the option and Vista recognizes my hard drive BUT when I select it to install Vista onto Vista tells me it is not a proper boot device, change my configuration or whatever the default message is. I'm confused.

Is this because I have only one drive connected to my HBA? Do I need to buy another hard drive and set up a Raid Array? If so, why? Both operating systems apparently recognize my hard drive (as well as my bios) but won't let me install onto it.

Is there some mystical option I need to disable or enable?

Anyway, this is my first post, and I apologize for it being so awful, but I need some help... clearly

The machine is running:
Asus P5E bios rev 0402
Intel Q6600
Kingston Hyperx DDR2 1066
Asus EN6200LE pci-e video card
SAS3442E-R pci-e SAS controller

I'm also limited on spare comp parts so I can't do a lot of hardware trouble-shooting

. I am starting to feel like my hard drive is defective however and am very close to calling its warranty in.

If I need to give more information PLEASE let me know. Thank You

Steve R Jones · December 19th, 2007, 06:32 AM

Bare minimum, Raid Array’s require two drives…

fuch · December 19th, 2007, 01:22 PM

So there is no way for me to boot just one drive off my SAS controller?

ugo1 · December 19th, 2007, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fuch

So there is no way for me to boot just one drive off my SAS controller?

Hi I'm tryng to install Win XP on the P5E WS Prfessional over a SAS controller (adaptec 44300) put in the PCI -X slot. At the start of the installation I give at WIN XP the adaptec 44300 driver (F6) and all seem go well until the first reboot. After that I take the Win XP cd rom out from the dvd-rom but at the rebbot appear a screen tell me that windows is not able to locate the system disk

Where is my error? I have other two disk under the intel raid but I didn't install the raid driver (and the only disk that the installer see is the the one under the SAS controller)

For your question: if you don't want do a raid configuration you don't need a second Hard Disk

Regards

Ugo

Peter M · December 19th, 2007, 05:53 PM

So your machine is seeing the drive, just doesn't want to do anything with it?

You probably have to /use/ that LSI BIOS to configure your drive usage - even if it's single-drive.

fuch · December 19th, 2007, 07:43 PM

The adapter's bios is "The Fusion-MPT SAS BIOS." In there I have my Fujitsu configured as the primary boot device. In my system's bios I have my cd-rom at #1 (to boot XP install disk) and the Fujitsu at #2. I've disabled my onboard Sata as well.

I've got 2 new SAS 15k Fujitsus on the way...

Peter M · December 20th, 2007, 05:07 PM

That's how it's supposed to be ... so the SAS BIOS is registering that single drive with the system BIOS, and it's available there as a boot choice?

If yes, then that means you got the SAS "array" set up the way you want it, in single-drive mode. If Windows loads the controller driver, sees the drive, and then refuses to install on it, you might have a screwed up partition table on the drive.

Look for some piece of software that lets you wipe it.

Keymaker · December 20th, 2007, 05:21 PM

Darik's Boot and Nuke to the rescue!

fuch · December 20th, 2007, 11:19 PM

Darik's Boot and Nuke won't recognize my controller's hard drive. I've used cfggen but it wouldn't format drives not in a volume.

Keymaker · December 21st, 2007, 05:53 AM

There are options in Darik to make it work.

There is E-Max as well. Need a floppy or you can create an emulation on a CD. http://www.bay-wolf.com/bootcd.htm (Note it says BIOS, that's ok.) Google for Nero portable if you don't have Nero.

If you have another computer, you can connect the drive in there and use DARK. Or a hard drive encloser/USB reader. With USB, mother board must be able to boot from USB however.

http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html Will have to extract the E-Max files from the .exe of course.