mylex scsi raid - need help

[chipy]

hi all,

got this old mylex scsi raid card. to show how old it is, the raid config utility isn't onboard but has to be used via floppy disk.

anyhow, i can't seem to use the adapter for a scsi card only w/o utilitizing its raid function.

i know the card works because i've been using it in raid 5 w/ 3 physical disks = 1 system disk.

all i want now are 3 independent disks w/o any raid functionality.

any ideas?

chipy

 

[sharkeeper]

What do you have?

You may have enough ROM space to load EZ BIOS and eliminate the need for the floppy.

EDIT:

My response could take a while this PM due to a "special occasion" I am was asked to attend. The wife said there will be no "wireless devices" brought on my person! Hey another departure party. Never too early for a brandy.

 

[chipy]

i have a dac960pdu w/ 4mb of memory.

thanks,
chipy

 

[sharkeeper]

Ouch, that's old for sure. Dunno if that one has the addressable space...

I don't have many (physical) resources I can check right now to see this animal. My RT is kind of laggy and the damn server locked out my account because of my flying fingers and their damn 28 character passwords. :|

You should be able to configure three logical drives using the full capacity of each physical device as a RAID0 array. No striping is involved and the OS will see each disk independantly. Some i/o acceleration features will work too making it faster than a dumb controller such as a 2940UW. Just make sure you have your appropriate driver loaded for your OS if any logical member is booting your OS.

 

[chipy]

thanks sharekeeper,

i will attempt that...

chipy

 

[chipy]

sharekeeper,

i tried your suggestion but it won't let me do RAID 0 unless i have at least 2 drives arranged in a "group".

i looked on LSI Logic's website (since they acquired Mylex) and they have ROM binaries - they say I need an EPROM burner for this.

how are ROM binaries different from firmware? i have the latest firmware for my card.

thanks,
chipy

 

[sharkeeper]

Rom binaries store the actual software - EZ Bios that lets you configure your HBA. If it's not present on the HBA rom you must boot from a floppy and do it that way.

There is not a Mylex HBA to be found here (no surprise!) so I'm sorry to say I don't have a way to find a workaround to your problem.

I do know someone that has a simulator that I may be able to download or run off one of the metaframes in ASP mode. This will allow me to essentially use EZBIOS like I had it here.

 

[chipy]

sharekeeper,

thanks for all your help. i figured out the solution to my problem recently. i found an article that described that a "RAID 7" was sometimes used to refer to JBOD back in the days by certain vendors. In my case, this was the fact. I was able to use each hard drive by itself using this mode.

Thanks again,
chipy