UCS C220 M4 not able to boot from Raid after broaken battery pac BBU

[janstr]

Hello everyone

I caused a short circuit on the cable of the battery of my raid controller. Then the battery burned out and the raid controller was temporarily (approx. 20 minutes) not  displayed via IPMI. Now the raid controller is back and the raid is fully functional according to the data of IPMI. Unfortunately, the server won’t boot from the raid. (had to set some settings correctly in the BIOS so that it was even recognized as a bootable medium) The raid controller only boots in legacy / bios mode, although UEFI has always worked so far (is also necessary because it is Windows Server 2019 DC in GPT directly on the Raid installed). The Windows Boot Manager doesn't appearts in the boot order. Does anyone know how I can “force” the raid controller to boot in UEFI mode? Switching to Uefi mode manually in Uefi/Bios only caused the controller to disappear from the list of bootable devices.

Thank you for help!

Regards

Jan

Server: UCS C220 M4S

Raid Controller: UCSCMRAID12G SAS Controller

Raid 5 with 6 SATA SSDs

Windows Server 2019 Datacenter in GPT mode installed

[Wes Austin]

When you boot up the server, after POST on the KVM do you see the RAID controller listed? It should say something like " Virtual drives handled by the BIOS." If you see 0 then the controller does not know about your virtual drive/windows install.

You should be able to press Ctrl + R or Ctrl + L when prompted to bring up the RAID controller Webbios and check setting there as well.

If you installed using UEFI mode then you would need to make sure the path is still present from the BIOS boot options or add it back. If you installed via legacy, keep the boot mode in legacy.

When you boot up the server and press F6, what options are displayed in both Legacy and UEFI boot modes?

[janstr]

Hello

Yes, the RAID controller is listed. I checked all settings in the Webbios of the RAID controller and they are all fine.

The RAID cotroller is now listed in the bootmenu in UEFI mode. 

I think, I installed in UEFI mode. But when I boot in UEFI mode and select over F6 the RAID controller, the following message appears:

 

When I boot in Legacy mode and choose the RAID controller, the message is like this:

Thank you for the fast answer!

Regards

Jan

 

[Wes Austin]

Go into the BIOS by pressing F2 when the server boots. In the boot order section, select to "Add a new boot option" and attempt to set this path for your UEFI boot option. Then save the changes, reboot and see if you see anything new in F6 boot options.

Similar to this process:

https://www.pei.com/cisco-c220-m5-boot-uefi-shell/ 

1. Boot Loader Name: BOOTX64.EFI
2. Boot Loader Path: \EFI\BOOT\
3. Boot Loader Description: UEFI Image on SAN (Or whatever you would like)

[janstr]

Hello

I have no option to "Add a new boot option" in the boot options of the UEFI:

This is in both, uefi and legacy boot mode, like this.

[Wes Austin]

Option one should be your OS, the fact that it shows there means the BIOS knows about the controller virtual drive. If you run an OS installer does the virtual drive show up as having data on it?

[janstr]

Hello

I startet a Windows 2019 ISO from USB-drive and went before installatin over Shift + F10 in CMD there I selected Diskpart and list disk and volume. This was the output:

It looks like the Raid is recognized but it shows free and there are no volumes. 

[brynnwodlfr]

I've seen this happen in two circumstances...though admittedly, we run the UCS-B blade chassis and blades of M3, M4, and M5 generations together.

The firmware is out of date. Confirm you are on the latest stable for your fabric interconnects and the server itself. Unpredictable behavior, at best, can occur when the fabric interconnects aren't able to link up properly to the servers.

I also had this problem when the main logic board went to hell. Cisco TAC sent us a replacement and we had to move our procs, MLOM card, and RAM then swap the blade. Cisco TAC was able to determine this within about 20 minutes after seeing the logs. If you have an agreement, it's worth the effort if you keep having trouble.

EDIT: Oops 'fiber' instead of 'fabric', I always do that.

[Drum69]

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@Wes Austin wrote: Landstar Online

When you boot up the server, after POST on the KVM do you see the RAID controller listed? It should say something like " Virtual drives handled by the BIOS." If you see 0 then the controller does not know about your virtual drive/windows install.

You should be able to press Ctrl + R or Ctrl + L when prompted to bring up the RAID controller Webbios and check setting there as well.

If you installed using UEFI mode then you would need to make sure the path is still present from the BIOS boot options or add it back. If you installed via legacy, keep the boot mode in legacy.

When you boot up the server and press F6, what options are displayed in both Legacy and UEFI boot modes?

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If you installed using UEFI mode then you would need to make sure the path is still present from the BIOS boot options or add it back.