Re: 3ware 9550SXU & Suse 10.0 Problems - Update

J. Hinkey wrote:
> Suse 10.0 64bit 2.6.13-15.16-smp kernel.
>
> Tried to install the driver as per the 3ware instructions. What I did
> was copy the smp version of the driver 3w-9xxx.ko to
> /lib/modules/<kernel string>/kernel/drivers/scsi/3w-9xxx.ko WITHOUT
> re-naming as 3w-9xxx.smp as perhaps suggested in the installation
> instructions which were at times a bit confusing:
>
> "Note about variables: In the instruction below, replace <kernel
> string> with the kernel version you are using (i.e. 2.6, etc.).
> In addition, replace 3w-9xxx.* with the appropriate module file for your
> kernel. The available module files are:
> For UP kernels: 3w-9xxx.ko
> For SMP kernels: 3w-9xxx.smp
> For BigSMP (high memory) kernels: 3w-9xxx.big"
>
> None of the examples showed them renaming the driver extension to .smp,
> so I did not.
>
> I then did:
>
> Edit /etc/sysconfig/kernel and make sure the file contains the
> following line:
> INITRD_MODULES="reiserfs 3w-9xxx"
>
> /sbin/insmod /lib/modules/<kernel string>/kernel/drivers/scsi/
> 3w-9xxx.ko
>
> /sbin/depmod -a
>
> /sbin/mkinitrd
>
> which all seemed to go alright.
>
> Upon re-booting the system couldn't find sda2 (root) and had a kernel
> panick. I somehow managed to get it to boot via the installation CD and
> restored the previously existing 3ware 9000 series .ko file (which does
> not support the 9550SXU) as well as deleting the INITRD_MODULES line
> from /etc/sysconfig/kernel and it boots fine again (thank goodness). It
> can't see my new RAID 10 array, but it recognizes the controller.
>
> So, should I have renamed the new driver to 3w-9xxx.smp and then done
> the depmod -a and mkinitrd?
>
> If not, what went wrong?
>
> Thanks -
>
> John
Just spent an hour on the phone with 3ware (AMCC) - it appears that the problem is that no matter what we do in the BIOSs (Tyan or 3ware) Suse
wants to load the new drive array as /dev/sda when it should be (on my system) sdd. From the text that scrolls by the screen before it can't
find the operating system on the drive array something is assigning the drive array to SCSI0, hence it thinks it is sda. If I boot into the
system without loading the 3ware driver and then manually insmod it Suse can see the 4 physical drives as one single drive (as it should) and
assigns it to sdd, but if I re-boot it comes up assigned as sda and the machine will obviously not boot from an empty drive.

We changed the PCI scan order to no avail as well as disabling the 3ware BIOS.

I really don't want to have to re-install the OS so that it sees the 3ware array right off and I'd rather not upgrade to 10.2 (which supports
the RAID card natively) since all my other machines are 10.0. Another suggestion was to upgrade the Tyan 2885 BIOS to the latest since changing
the PCI scan order did not seem to change anything.

Any suggestions as to what to do? Any Tyan folks have a similar problem?

Thanks -

John

Turns out I had a multiple instance of INITRD_MODULES=" " in my kernel file (operator headspace error), which obviously would mess things up.
So, no problems now with the Tyan 2885 & 3ware 9550SXU - it's all running fine now under Suse 10.0 in a RAID 10 config.

- John