Re: 3Ware cards on RHEL 4.2

[Joshua Baker-LePain <jlb17 duke edu>]

On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 at 4:47pm, Jack Neely wrote

> I am attempting to upgrade a server with a 3Ware 7500 series ATA RAID
> card.  The machine has been running AS 3 for a few years and has not
> given me any problems that I've seen today.
>
> Trying to install RHEL AS 4 the loader will not get past inserting the
> 3w-xxxx module.  Giving errors:
>
>    3w-xxxx: scsi0: Unit #0: Command (f7a68c00) timed out, resetting
> card.
>
> The command address does vary.

Is the firmware on the card up to date?  If the firmware and driver are 
too far out of sync, it can cause issues.

> I have 2 HDs in a mirror and have attempted booting/installing the
> system with just 1 of the 2, and completely replacing with 2 spare ATA
> disks.  Always received the same error.  (And now the 3ware bios is
> being flaky about not wanting to see the drive in slot 1 unless I remove
> the drive in slot 0. *shrug*)  It is an older machine...

That sure sounds like flaky hardware (cables, e.g.).  Are you using a hot 
swap backplane that could be flaky?  Try fresh cables as well.  All drives 
are jumpered as masters, right?

I'm running centos-4 on several 7500 and 8000 (and 9550, for that matter) 
based systems, so it *can* work.

--
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University