UCS C200 M2 with 1064E - no raid configuration possible

[Dominic Stalder (old profile)]

Hi everybody

I have a C200 M2 with a 1064E raid controller and two SAS disks, but I am not able to configure a raid 1. I have installed firmware 1.4(3k). Please see attachments for more information.

Did anybody ever have the same problems?

Thanks in advance and best regards

Dominic

Information:

[Brian Morrissey]

Hi Dominic,

Are the PCIe slots enabled or disabled in the BIOS?  Try setting disabled to no for all the cards and see if that helps.

[Dominic Stalder (old profile)]

Hi Brian

thanks, but yes, the PCIe Mezz Port is enabled.

Regards

Dominic

[Brian Morrissey · Accepted solution]

Hi Dominic,

You went into the F2 bios on boot and all the pcie slots were set to disabled no?  There is another bug were you have to pull all the pci cards to configure the raid but I think that is further along than you are running into (

http://tools.cisco.com/Support/BugToolKit/search/getBugDetails.do?method=fetchBugDetails&bugId=CSCtz63555&from=summary).

[Dominic Stalder (old profile)]

Hi Brian

thanks a lot, your post (and the bug description) helped me to solve the problem - I just downgraded to UCS firmware 1.4(2) and was able to create the raid.

Now I will try to upgrade back to 1.4(3k) to see if this still works - should.

Five Points for you and best regards

Dominic

[varrow_jgillow]

I had this problem back in May and was able to create a RAID 1 volume using the UCS Server Configuration Utility.

http://jeremygillow.varrowblogs.com/?p=176

[Dominic Stalder (old profile)]

A follow up question: has anyone be able to install ESXi 4.1 or 5.0 on this raid 1 with 1064E controller?

I always get the attached error messages. I am absolutely new to UCS, so excuse my stupid questions.

Thanks a lot and best regards.

[Brian Morrissey]

Hi Dominic,

Did you use the custom cisco install iso from vmware.com?

Also have a look at:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1033696

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1027819. 

Vmware considers SAS drives remote storage by default

[Dominic Stalder (old profile)]

No because I searched on CCO and on vmware.com I can not find it. Do you have the exact link?

[Brian Morrissey · Accepted solution]

esxi 4.1
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?productId=230&downloadGroup=ESXI41-CISCO-OEM-ISO

esxi 5.0
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?productId=229&downloadGroup=CISCO-ESXI-5.0.0-GA-23AUG2011

[Dominic Stalder (old profile)]

You're great - thanks a lot. Will try to install it with this ISO.

[Dominic Stalder (old profile)]

Hi Brian

even with the customized Cisco image, I can not install VMware. Don't know what I am doing wrong at all:

Any other ideas or help?

Thanks

Dominic

[Brian Morrissey]

Does F2 work at that screen and allow you to configure the management network?

[Dominic Stalder (old profile)]

Yes, but it does not show the management configuration screen, it starts installing the ESXi ;-) But after that, everything works fine.

Thanks a lot Brian

Dominic

[Brian Morrissey]

Glad to hear its working.  Also, double check your scratch partition config in the docs above so that you don't lose your log/cores on reboot and gain back some ram from the ramdisk that may have been created.