Help with BSOD.

[Deamos]

Hello,

First, I am sorry if this is the wrong place to post my question, if it is
please direct me to the correct newsgroup and I will repost there.

I have been working to replace a raid controller that is slowly going into
a death spiral.

I have a replacement controller that accourding to LSI is completely
compatible. However when I swap the controllers and boot the server up
Windows comes up about 3/4ths of the way then gives
INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE which strikes me as odd since it starts the boot
sequence.

I really do not want to be forced to rebuild this server as it would be a
great deal of trouble.

The blue screen that comes up has the error 0x7B. I can provide more
information if that would be helpful.

For reference we are replacing an Accelaraid 170 with an Accelaraid 170LP
(low profile). The differences being the size of the card and the LP has
16MB of memory on board instead of 32.

Thanks.

 

[R. J. Salvi]

Install the new RAID card with no drives attached to it -- keeping the old
RAID card (with drives attached) in place. When Windows boots, it should
find the new card and prompt for drivers. Install the drivers for the new
card, shut the machine down, move the IDE cables from the old card to the
new, remove the old card and reboot. hth.

 

[Deamos]

Install the new RAID card with no drives attached to it -- keeping the
old RAID card (with drives attached) in place. When Windows boots, it
should find the new card and prompt for drivers. Install the drivers
for the new card, shut the machine down, move the IDE cables from the
old card to the new, remove the old card and reboot. hth.

Thanks for the quick reply, unfortunatly this doesn't quite get me to where
I need to go.

I would do the above but perhaps unwisely the entire system is installed on
the raid array in two partitions, this is a rack mounted server so space is
at a premium.

 

[Deamos]

Install the new RAID card with no drives attached to it -- keeping the
old RAID card (with drives attached) in place. When Windows boots, it
should find the new card and prompt for drivers. Install the drivers
for the new card, shut the machine down, move the IDE cables from the
old card to the new, remove the old card and reboot. hth.

Aww crud, misread what you wrote -- sorry about the previous response,
guess I need more coffee.

For some reason that I can't figure out the system is *not* seeing the
secondary card in any way, so it is not prompting for drivers for that
second card.

 

[R. J. Salvi]

Aww crud, misread what you wrote -- sorry about the previous response,
guess I need more coffee.

For some reason that I can't figure out the system is *not* seeing the
secondary card in any way, so it is not prompting for drivers for that
second card.

It's possible that the OS is reading the .inf file -- and is content with
it -- which is why you're not prompted for drivers, but the driver versions
(.sys and maybe .cat) are different and won't allow the card to be loaded.
Just a guess...

 

[Deamos]

It's possible that the OS is reading the .inf file -- and is content
with it -- which is why you're not prompted for drivers, but the
driver versions (.sys and maybe .cat) are different and won't allow
the card to be loaded. Just a guess...

Hmm.

Well here's another question or thought to go with this.

When I do boot the system with both cards installed, only the card with the
hard drives actually shows up in the hardware manager. So even though at
the time there are two cards it only sees a single card.

I had thoughts of "uninstalling" the main controller from the system then
rebooting to see if it redetects both cards, but I am fearful that doing so
will cause the system to become completely unbootable.

Any idea if that could or would happen? Otherwise any suggestions on where
else I could look for answers?

 

[John John]

There is a KB article that states that XP can't see 2 Mylex controllers
at the same time, no real answer to the problem just a confirmation that
a problem exists with this hardware configuration on XP, maybe the same
applies to W2k?

Adding a Second Mylex AcceleRAID SCSI Controller Causes an Error Message
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314908

Try here: http://www.lsilogic.com/downloads/selectDoc.do

They have a toll free number there, give them a call if need be.

John

 

[R. J. Salvi]

Hmm.

Well here's another question or thought to go with this.

When I do boot the system with both cards installed, only the card with
the
hard drives actually shows up in the hardware manager. So even though at
the time there are two cards it only sees a single card.

I had thoughts of "uninstalling" the main controller from the system then
rebooting to see if it redetects both cards, but I am fearful that doing
so
will cause the system to become completely unbootable.

Any idea if that could or would happen? Otherwise any suggestions on
where
else I could look for answers?

Yes, it's quite possible -- and probable -- the system will not boot if you
uninstall the old card and install the new one (with drives attached). If
you're going to attempt that, as you already know, back up! I gather this
machine is not a 7/24 server (since it's in a semi state of disarray)? Also,
I assume you're running hardware RAID and not software RAID?

It's a long shot, but have you tried clearing the motherboard BIOS? It
probably won't do anything except force you to waste a minute reconfiguring
it, but if you're having a system level glitch, this might help...although I
sense it's a software related issue.

I know you're trying to avoid it, but a clean install will more than likely
solve all your problems with card recognition. fwiw...

 

[Deamos]

Yes, it's quite possible -- and probable -- the system will not boot
if you uninstall the old card and install the new one (with drives
attached). If you're going to attempt that, as you already know, back
up! I gather this machine is not a 7/24 server (since it's in a semi
state of disarray)? Also, I assume you're running hardware RAID and
not software RAID?

It's a long shot, but have you tried clearing the motherboard BIOS? It
probably won't do anything except force you to waste a minute
reconfiguring it, but if you're having a system level glitch, this
might help...although I sense it's a software related issue.

I know you're trying to avoid it, but a clean install will more than
likely solve all your problems with card recognition. fwiw...

Just a brief follow up.

As it turned out I managed to get the second controller detected under
windows 2000 by swapping the riser card (2U rackmount) which uncovered some
other problems. After some meddling around we changed out the motherboard
as well which in turn is what helped get both cards detected. From there
it was a trivial matter of swapping the cards once windows decided that it
could see the secondary(new) card.

Sometimes hardware problems aren't clear until everything else has been
tried. *grumble*