Hi,

 

I have a problem. I have the following hardware configuration:

 

- MB: Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H

- RAM 6GB

- 8 pcs of HDDs attached to the motherboard SATA socket,

- 4 pcs of HDDs attached to a Sil Raid 3114A01 raid card, PCI fw 5.3.14

- power Cooler Master 600W Silent Pro

This system working faultless, but now I would like to add new drives to the system, so thats why added another raid card in to the next PCI port. Its the same as the other one which working perfect with in my system.

 

When I add the new card and attach one HDD to it. After the boot is starting, but when it come to the clean screen, blinking the "_" cursor and after few second should come the line: "Loading the Operating System..." and than the blue Lime-Technology screen..etc.. it doesnt come, just stay in the blinking "_", and blinking...blinking...not boot up the system. When I dont attach any HDD to the new raid card, the system boot up without any problem. Only When I give power to the new 13th HDD. So I dont think it is any failure with the raid card.

 

Maybe the 600W is not enough big for 13 HDDs?

Maybe I have to setup something in the BIOS?

Maybe I the mobo cant work with two raid card in one time?

Maybe I have to attach more than 1 HDD to the raid card?

stupid questions... 

 

When the screen coming to the Sil SATARaid type and attached HDDs listing, after there write a line :

 

"No valid device! Press any key to continue...

or

Perss CTRL+S or F4 to enter RAID utility_"

 

but it was there in the past and did not made any problem...as I know I dont have to setup the raid in the raid utility, because its made by the unraid OS itself...

 

Im sorry for my bad language, i hope it was clear what happening...

 

Im waiting for your kind help, how could I solve it?

Hi,

 

I have a problem. I have the following hardware configuration:

 

- MB: Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H

 

 

Only When I give power to the new 13th HDD. So I dont think it is any failure with the raid card.

 

 

I recall that there were problems with some motherboards (You might search on this forum using the model of your MB to see if it is one of them)  that would not allow them to boot from a Flash drive once the number of HD reached about twelve.  You might read your manual and see if you can force a 'Boot' menu to be displayed after POST.  (As an example, it is F8 for my Asus MB.) That menu will generally list all of the devices that the BIOS makes available for booting.

 

Also look in the BIOS to make sure that your Flash drive is listed as being a boot option and move it to the first option if possible.

 

 

I've checked the forum, but I didnt found any topic with this issue with my MB. I also checked the boot setup in the boot menu (F12 for my MB), and also in the main BIOS setup. But there was everything fine, my flash drive is on the 1st place on the list...

 

Could it be my MB is limited for 12 HDDs only?!?!

 

Or what should be the solution if it exist? I tried all the other USB port (front/back on the case) but from nowhere want the flash drive booting..

At one point I in the past on my very first build I had some similar problems running one of those 3114 cards.  As I recall, I had to try different PCI slots (and rearrange the order of the cards) in order to get it to work for some weird reason.

 

The card looked like this:

600w is plenty of power.

 

Enter the RAID card's BIOS and see if you can disable it => you may have done this on the original card and simply forgotten to configure the new one.

 

Also, you MAY have to do this with only one card installed ... just remove the old card temporarily and try it with the new RAID card.

 

Finally, try a different PCI slot ... I don't think it's an issue with your motherboard, but on some (usually older)motherboards not all PCI slots were bus mastering.

 

At one point I in the past on my very first build I had some similar problems running one of those 3114 cards.  As I recall, I had to try different PCI slots (and rearrange the order of the cards) in order to get it to work for some weird reason.

 

The card looked like this:

 

Yes i have these cards. I tried to switch in my pci slots with every kind of combination, but the problem did not solved.

600w is plenty of power.

 

Enter the RAID card's BIOS and see if you can disable it => you may have done this on the original card and simply forgotten to configure the new one.

 

Also, you MAY have to do this with only one card installed ... just remove the old card temporarily and try it with the new RAID card.

 

Finally, try a different PCI slot ... I don't think it's an issue with your motherboard, but on some (usually older)motherboards not all PCI slots were bus mastering.

 

 

I tried all of my pci slots combinations. No solution.

 

I also switched the old raid card to the new one. Everyting worked perfect like before, so the raid cards working properly.

 

I will check this disable option in the raid bios when im going home, buti were in the raid cards bios and i dont remember disable option. I saw there make a new raid, or delete raid configuration... Not disable.

one thing you could try,  try going into your bios and make sure your usb flash drive with unraid is still your main boot device.  I remember my server did this once when i added a new card and it turned out that for some reason it changed the boot device and that is why it was just flashing the cursor. It was looking for the boot os on one of the data drives and not the flash drive

I tried everything what you've wrote. Main BIOS settings, Raid bios settings, PCI slots combination...so everything

 

But the problem is still there...no boot up when the 13th HDD is attached to the system.

This won't fix your issue, but does the system work okay if you boot with 12 drives attached;  and then connect the 13th (and any other additional drives) AFTER it's booted?    Since the system uses AHCI there's no problem "hot plugging" the drives ... just curious if this works okay.

 

Again, that won't resolve this (you clearly don't want to have to operate that way) ... but if it works it will confirm that the issue is indeed related to the # of drives and not specifically to the additional controller.

 

This won't fix your issue, but does the system work okay if you boot with 12 drives attached;  and then connect the 13th (and any other additional drives) AFTER it's booted?    Since the system uses AHCI there's no problem "hot plugging" the drives ... just curious if this works okay.

 

Again, that won't resolve this (you clearly don't want to have to operate that way) ... but if it works it will confirm that the issue is indeed related to the # of drives and not specifically to the additional controller.

 

 

now im on a preclear procedure, because the problem still dont resolved, I picked up an older 1TB HDD and switched it to the planned 13th HDD which is a 3TB HDD. But I have this old 1TB HDD to test what you mentioned... but it is no problem now the array is stopped and preclearing on the way? Or its better than I wait till the preclear done and after make the test to add the 13th HDD? In normal situation when I preclear a new disk it is possible to start the array, or due the preclearing procedure the array must be stopped?

You can start the array while you're doing a pre-clear ... and could indeed even do this test while it's in progress.  HOWEVER ... I'd wait for the pre-clear to finish "just in case" adding the drive causes an issue.  No reason to take a chance on inadvertently aborting the pre-clear.

 

 

 

Well... I've tested it trough the pre-clear process..  and it worked...so when the OS is booted up, I can attach a new HDD, the system found it and its in the drive list in unraid menu.

 

If there is not an exact solution to solve the booting issue...maybe it will be a half solution to add the HDD-s above 12pcs after boot...reboot is not a frequent situation anyway..

 

thanks for your idea even if its not the real solution, but now I can add extra disks to the system

It might be worth seeing if the BIOS for the RAID card has an option to disable INT 13.  This might help as that would mean the devices on the card would no longer be potential BOOT devices, so if the limit is the number of bootable devices the main BIOS can handle it could fix the problem.

It might be worth seeing if the BIOS for the RAID card has an option to disable INT 13.  This might help as that would mean the devices on the card would no longer be potential BOOT devices, so if the limit is the number of bootable devices the main BIOS can handle it could fix the problem.

 

I will check the main MOBOs BIOS after pre-clear. But in the raid card bios there is no disable option. What is mean INT 13?

The mani BIOS of Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H is more more complex, with more option, but I dont remember to raid card disable option...I will check.

here is the raid menu (I get it from the net, not my screenshot)

 

there is no disable option.

I'd run another couple of tests to confirm whether or not this is due to > 12 drives, or if you're having an issue with two of the Sil cards ...

 

(1)  In the configuration that works fine (12 drives); change the connections so you have 2 drives on each of the 2 Sil cards.    Since this is still just 12 drives, it SHOULD boot just fine ... if not, the issue isn't > 12 drives, but the fact you have 2 of the Sil cards installed.    If that's the case, the best solution is to simply replace the Sil cards with a single 8-port SATA card in the 2nd PCIe x16 slot.

 

(2)  If #1 works fine, then confirm that you can in fact use all of the ports on the 2 cards => change the drive connections around so you have 4 drives on each of the 2 Sil cards; and the remaining 4 drives on motherboard ports.    If #1 worked okay, I'd expect this to as well.    Then confirm that a 13th drive causes problems by plugging another drive into a motherboard port.

 

I'd run another couple of tests to confirm whether or not this is due to > 12 drives, or if you're having an issue with two of the Sil cards ...

 

(1)  In the configuration that works fine (12 drives); change the connections so you have 2 drives on each of the 2 Sil cards.    Since this is still just 12 drives, it SHOULD boot just fine ... if not, the issue isn't > 12 drives, but the fact you have 2 of the Sil cards installed.    If that's the case, the best solution is to simply replace the Sil cards with a single 8-port SATA card in the 2nd PCIe x16 slot.

 

(2)  If #1 works fine, then confirm that you can in fact use all of the ports on the 2 cards => change the drive connections around so you have 4 drives on each of the 2 Sil cards; and the remaining 4 drives on motherboard ports.    If #1 worked okay, I'd expect this to as well.    Then confirm that a 13th drive causes problems by plugging another drive into a motherboard port.

 

 

OK. I will make these tests after pre-clear. Thanks for your ideas guys! be right back after testing

I will check the main MOBOs BIOS after pre-clear. But in the raid card bios there is no disable option. What is mean INT 13?

INT 13 (Interrupt 13) has something to do with identifying what drives are capable of acting as boot drives.  Quite how it is used I am not sure.  All I know is that on my card disabling that option stops the main bios from seeing the drives attached to the card as selectable as boot devices.