michaelroni Posted April 15, 2021 Share Posted April 15, 2021 First time building an Unraid server, and after getting everything put together and booting up for the first time, I'm puzzled as to why Unraid is only detecting 1 of the 4 HDDs I have connected to my HBA card. I'm VERY noob, but capable enough to read guides that say "this hardware gud, and work together gud" and "follow these brainded steps to install Unraid". Unfortunately, I'm not capable enough to figure out this problems, so I come to you all for help.  For reference, the key hardware is as follows: MB: ASRock B550 CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X HBA: Dell H200 Integrated 6Gbps SAS HBA w/ LSI 9210-8i P20 IT Mode (purchased from Art of Server) RAM: Kingston KSM26ED8/16ME - DDR4-16 GB - DIMM 288-pin - 2666 MHz / PC4-21300 - CL19-1.2 V - unbuffered - ECC HDDs: Western Digital Red Plus 8TB (connected to HBA via CableCreation Mini SAS 36Pin (SFF-8087) Male to 4X SATA Female Target/Backplane)  I've attached my diagnostics zip. I appreciate any and all help that can be offered 😃 mc-server-diagnostics-20210415-1500.zip Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted April 15, 2021 Share Posted April 15, 2021 Can your BIOS see the disks? Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 15, 2021 Author Share Posted April 15, 2021 No, it doesn't seem so. When I'm in BIOS, I can see the HBA, and the BIOS lets me check some various config options and status info, and it says that there's 1 disk connected to the HBA. Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted April 15, 2021 Share Posted April 15, 2021 If the BIOS doesn't see the disks Unraid can't. Check power connections. Quote Link to comment
Hoopster Posted April 15, 2021 Share Posted April 15, 2021 (edited) 2 hours ago, michaelroni said: CableCreation Mini SAS 36Pin (SFF-8087) Male to 4X SATA Female Do you have the drives direct connected to SFF-8087 to SATA cables? Are they in a disk cage with SATA connector to the cage on some kind of backplane?  I have a Dell H310 with drives in a hot-swap bay with SATA connectors on the back of the hotswap bays.  These configurations require a forward breakout cable. Direction matters. Reverse breakout cables will not work and drives will not be detected in BIOS or unRAID. Forward and reverse cables look exactly the same.  I cannot tell 100% from the description of the cable you bought whether it is a forward or reverse breakout cable; although my reading of that is that they are forward cables.  These cables are the ones I purchased as they specifically state they are forward breakout cables. Edited April 15, 2021 by Hoopster Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 15, 2021 Author Share Posted April 15, 2021 I'll try the forward breakout cable you linked, Hoopster. It's true that the description on the one I bought does not make it explicitly clear if it's forward or reverse. Â Guess I'll be in a holding pattern for now until the forward breakout cable gets delivered. Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 18, 2021 Author Share Posted April 18, 2021 I received the forward breakout cable and used it to replace the cable I was previously using. Still encountering the same issue, only one of the four HDDs is being detected. It seems like power is not an issue, all four HDDs appear to be receiving power, but I'm only basing that on the fact that all four HDDs sound like they're spinning up when I boot up with the case open. Quote Link to comment
John_M Posted April 18, 2021 Share Posted April 18, 2021 The next thing to try is the other port on the SAS controller. Â Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 18, 2021 Author Share Posted April 18, 2021 Yeah, I've tried both ports on the SAS card, and it doesn't seem to make a difference. On both ports, it only detects one HDD. Quote Link to comment
John_M Posted April 18, 2021 Share Posted April 18, 2021 Is it always the same disk (serial number) that's being detected when you swap them around? If yes, try connecting the ones that aren't detected to the motherboard SATA ports to see if the disks are actually working. If no, then it looks like the controller is faulty. Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 18, 2021 Author Share Posted April 18, 2021 With both ports on the SAS card, it's the same HDD that is being detected. Â I tried connecting all HDDs to my MB via individual SATA cables, and they all get detected that way. Â So is a faulty SAS card the most likely answer here? Are there some particular config settings within the BIOS that might be the culprit? Quote Link to comment
WizADSL Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 Were the drives with the issue originally sold as externals? Quote Link to comment
Vr2Io Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 11 hours ago, michaelroni said: faulty SAS card Each cable have 4 SATA, if connect detected disk to other SATA connector won't detect, then it is card fault. Â From log, seems there are something detect but just disk no show. Suggest provide diagnostic when those problem disk connect to onboard which will normal detect. Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 19, 2021 Author Share Posted April 19, 2021 8 hours ago, WizADSL said: Were the drives with the issue originally sold as externals? They were all brand new WD Red Plus drives bought off of Amazon. Â 4 hours ago, Vr2Io said: Each cable have 4 SATA, if connect detected disk to other SATA connector won't detect, then it is card fault. Â From log, seems there are something detect but just disk no show. Suggest provide diagnostic when those problem disk connect to onboard which will normal detect. I have my diagnostic zip in the first post. Quote Link to comment
John_M Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 Have you taken a look at the HBA's BIOS settings (not the motherboard BIOS)? I seem to remember you need to press CTRL-C during POST. It should show what's happening. Maybe something is disabled and you can restore the default settings. Â Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 19, 2021 Author Share Posted April 19, 2021 23 minutes ago, John_M said: Have you taken a look at the HBA's BIOS settings (not the motherboard BIOS)? I seem to remember you need to press CTRL-C during POST. It should show what's happening. Maybe something is disabled and you can restore the default settings. Â Not quite sure how to do that. Â I am able to check some controller properties for the HBA within the mobo BIOS, and I'm able to enable or disable legacy BIOS on the HBA, but that's all. Quote Link to comment
John_M Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 1 minute ago, michaelroni said: Not quite sure how to do that. Â 27 minutes ago, John_M said: (not the motherboard BIOS)? I seem to remember you need to press CTRL-C during POST Â Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 19, 2021 Author Share Posted April 19, 2021 "CTRL-C during POST" Â Apologies, I am admittedly pretty noob. It boots up to the screen where I can hit F2/DEL to enter mobo BIOS, and then it goes straight to booting Unraid off my USB drive. I was pressing ctrl-c at all points along that sequence but didn't get anything. Quote Link to comment
John_M Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 When you first power on, don't you see a screen of text before the motherboard UEFI/BIOS starts up or before the Unraid boot menu shows? If not, you might have to enable full POST in the motherboard UEFI/BIOS. The HBA BIOS looks like an old fashioned blue and white text-based BIOS, as on this page. Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 19, 2021 Author Share Posted April 19, 2021 I can't seem to figure out how to enable full POST with my mobo. There was an option to "disable the logo and display normal POST messages", but it still is not displaying a screen of text on boot up or before Unraid boot, not like what is shown on the link you posted. Quote Link to comment
John_M Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 34 minutes ago, michaelroni said: There was an option to "disable the logo and display normal POST messages" Â That would be the one. But if there's no HBA BIOS, maybe it was flashed without one. It isn't necessary for it to work with Unraid so it can be flashed with the appropriate firmware but no BIOS. The advantage of this is that it starts up quicker. The disadvantage is that the BIOS can be quite useful for troubleshooting. Â Quote Link to comment
John_M Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 I have one last suggestion, which would be to re-flash it. https://wiki.unraid.net/Crossflashing_Controllers#LSI_MegaRAID_with_SAS2008_chipsets  Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 19, 2021 Author Share Posted April 19, 2021 According to Art of Server's item description on ebay, "I also flashed the LSI/Avago MPTSAS2 BIOS ROM version 07.39.02.00 and UEFI 07.27.01.01 so that it is easier to access the controller's ROM without booting an OS." So I feel like there should be a HBA BIOS for me to access, if only I could get to it somehow. Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 21, 2021 Author Share Posted April 21, 2021 Â On 4/19/2021 at 10:56 AM, John_M said: When you first power on, don't you see a screen of text before the motherboard UEFI/BIOS starts up or before the Unraid boot menu shows? If not, you might have to enable full POST in the motherboard UEFI/BIOS. The HBA BIOS looks like an old fashioned blue and white text-based BIOS, as on this page. Â Â Ok, it took some messing around within my MB bios, but I was able to finally get to my SAS config utility, just like in this link. It was originally set to "BIOS and OS", so I changed it to "OS only", and the problem remains the same. Quote Link to comment
michaelroni Posted April 29, 2021 Author Share Posted April 29, 2021 Mods, you can mark this as closed now. Turns out my issue was just as simple as defective hard drives, which have since been replaced. Quote Link to comment
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