IBM / FreeBSD Install problem

[Jerry McAllister]

On Thu, Apr 19, 2007 at 10:14:13AM +1000, Murray Taylor wrote:

> Server: IBM X3850 (88633SM)
> CPU X 4: 40K2522
> HDD X 6: 40K1051
> IBM ServeRAID 8i: 39R8729
> 
> We are attempting to install FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE onto this machine and
> are running into a problem getting the operating system to recognise the
> RAID controller. As a result not finding any disks when it comes to
> installing the O/S.
> 
> We have attempted various modifications to the boot process, including
> the loading of an "aac" module, which according to the BSD website,
> should provide support for this type of controller.

I have only installed on a couple of raids and so don't know about
them all or even this one.   So, this might not apply to your situation.
But, I found that I had to study DMESG very carefully to find out what 
device to use for them.   The system seemed to put out a lot of messages 
that looked like other device names but in the end there was just one 
little line that pointed to the correct one.    The most recent one was 
a Dell Perc 3i or something like that and I had to run the fixit and 
study the boot messages to figure it out.    I don't have that one 
available to look at what it turned out to be, but it was more simple 
than I first thought from all the stuff it wrote out.  After mucking
with fixit a bit, then sysinstall seemed to figure it out OK.  I don't
remember actually changing anything - just fishing around a while.
I may have run fdisk under fixit to look at things and maybe delete
some slices.

So, rather than trying to change things right off, I would suggest
looking carefully at stuff and trying to determine what it is already
doing.

Anyway, good luck,

////jerry

> 
> When we attempt to boot to OS to install after making these above
> modifications, the boot loader advises that this module already appears
> to be loaded, which contradicts what I believe. In any respect, it
> doesn't work either way (with or without the module manually loaded).
> 
> One side note (which i don't think is contributing) is that when I
> attempt to start the boot loader with ACPI enabled, it freezes with the
> message "cpu id 38 too high". However if I boot the boot loader with
> ACPI disabled, this message dissapears. It _may_ be a possibility that a
> bi-product of disabling the ACPI is causing the RAID controller to have
> issues. This appears to be an issue because of the X4 CPU count ??
> 
> That's a quick summary of the problem we have, and the path(s) we have
> been down to date to attempt to fix it. Any help you can provide would
> be very much appreciated. We are at the position now where we are
> prepared to pay for consulting services to get it going.
> 
> Dave Faulkner / Murray Taylor
> 
> Bytecraft Systems
> 
> 
> --
> 
> "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It
> takes a
> touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite
> direction."
> --Albert Einstein 
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