BIOS not installed, serious help needed before I cause more problems

[fluffykitten]

I installed this PCI-X controller below, but into a normal PCI slot,

Adaptec AIC-7902W SCSI Controller Adapter Card PCI-X....

I then proceeded to conect the HDD's up, (4) 73GB 10K RPM Fujitsu Ultra320 SCSI/68-pin/LVD drives, it is a long cable that connects into the controller and at the end has the terminator.

My OS is on a 74GB Western Digital WD Raptor with two more Seagate Barracuda 1TB drives.

@ this point, I turned the machine on not sure what to expect, they are very loud, turbine sounding, but they were outside of the case, since I didn't know if they would work or not.. Not the hdd not working but the setup cause I knowing nothing about SCSI and plus the 7 drives in a normal size case. lights blink on and off at times on the scsi hdd's.

The machine saw the controller and I was able to access the config utility, was telling me that 0:0 setup was something something wrong and when I clicked out and continued,

Booting the controller Kernel,.....Controller started


The messages below is how it ends.

Following SCSI IDs are not responding:

No Logical drives foud

No Int 13 Drives to support

BIOS not installed

This is just one of my personal machines, no server or anything like that.


Update : Removed controller, hdd's and now the system is back to normal. I like to know how to run the scsi setup, Would I notice a vast difference in speed compared to my hdd's now with no raid what so ever.

 

[Mark56]

I suspect that you do not have the jumpers set correctly on the Fujitsu drives. They must all be different to give each drive a separate ID.

There may also be a problem with your Bios settings or possibly the Bios is incompatible.

From what I have read on the subject the SCSI set up would give a noticeable increase in speed.

 

[fluffykitten]

You are correct, I do not have experience with setting up raid setups nor SCSI. I set all the jumpers the same thinking that they must all be in sync so that is one problem. I also have another raid controller to try, "LSI Logic Ultra320 controller, again being a PCI-X.

My system board is a k87NEO2, The bios is up to date and was flashed recently. The current setup I have now is

K87 Board
Nvidia Graphics card
3Gb PC3200 400 DDR
2 IDE 250GB HDD
1 Sata raptor 74gb
1 Sata 120gb

pretty much what I am working with right now, built the system in 2004 and don't mind turning this system into something else, I run 2 laptops for my primary systems on a 4 port usb KVM

Even if I can't use it for anything I need to learn and understand setting up raid setups and scsi. As dumb as this may sound, I work as a NOC but when it comes to the engineering dept, I never take part or work in this area, embarrassed I do not know much about hardware/software. Basically slightly above A+ level when it comes to building machines and even working with windows OS. Do I need more drives as somebody else had said, I could use two just to get a good understanding correct. Have any resources, let me know and if you wanna help me, ill start working on it.

I have the two PCI-x controllers / 3 identical 10k drives, 1 cheetah drive. and oh I also have a couple more but they are 15k cheetah but with only one end, where the cable will not connect into it, they are like this [picture]

already cased where you can push them in and take them out of the slots, however I don't have the slot where you can slide them into.

 

[Mark56]

This type of drive (as far as I know) is made for a server and, as you have said, you have no slot for it so it is of little use.

So, you had the jumpers all set the same, have you now made them all different and checked to see if it works.

"Someone said you need more drives", not sure why that would make any difference but your PCI card will only take four drives so you could only add more with another PCI card or does it have more than four connectors.

This guide might help.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/132877/how_to_set_up_raid_on_your_pc.html

 

[fluffykitten]

The card I believe can hold up to 16 or some crazy number, but I need to check... I haven't had time yet and I will be leaving for work in a few minutes.

 

[fluffykitten]

Well I just finished building a scrap machine using a

ABIT-IC7 motherboard
Northwood P4 3.20GhZ
SATA optical drive
GeForce 7600GS
3GB DDR PC3200
(4) Fujitsu 73GB 10k SCSI HDD
Antec Green 350watt PSU,(underrated when compared to many 5-600watt PSU)

All fans, cpu copper pipe cooler and chipset cooler are from coolermaster,com
6 fans (case chassis)
5 fans (HDD, GPU, PSU, memoryboard)
aluminum case

Since I don't care about this machine, it is just to mess around with, my personal system on the bench/office. Northwood cpu isn't anything special but does have some unique properties for overclocking. Damaging my AGP and or any PCI peripheral cards will not be any concern but let me clarify that yes I am wanting to dab into the red a little but I am constantly thinking risk assessment, not going to go full out irrational with this, long term CPU degradation I predict but that is all really, since this is not a gaming machine the GPU will be fine, serious heat issues may arise from the SCSI but this is a unknown variable @ the moment since I have never ran SCSI.

so will this machine be sufficient for my SCSI setup.

Depending on how loud the drives will be, I had a chance to hear them running outside of the case. The sound gets annoying, yes if the setup works the way like some say, and the sound is not tolerable once installed inside of the case I will move the setup to my liquid cooling box. Installing the OS now (Ubuntu/Win7) and so on, tomorrow, any help with the jumper settings so I can get this started.

I can also buy a Dell server box with 16 slots with Cheetah 15k drives coming with it, ready to go for very cheap but seriously, that is over kill for me and I already have a very high power bill with my hobbies which both of them include power issues :/

 

[Mark56]

I wish you luck with your experiment but I would whatch that power suppy if you are going to hook up a lot of drives you may overload it.

I can only repeat what I said earlier about the jumper settings you just need to have them all different. And for the correct RAID set up follow the guide I gave in post 4.

Those noisy drives sound like they could be near the end, noise from a hard drive as you described it would be from worn bearings on the spindle, they probably won't last much longer but fine for experimantation.