From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 9 12:25:25 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C22EB16A420 for ; Thu, 9 Mar 2006 12:25:25 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from judmarc@fastmail.fm) Received: from out4.smtp.messagingengine.com (out4.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.28]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 579AB43D45 for ; Thu, 9 Mar 2006 12:25:24 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from judmarc@fastmail.fm) Received: from frontend1.internal (mysql-sessions.internal [10.202.2.149]) by frontend1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 63454D3AF7E for ; Thu, 9 Mar 2006 07:24:36 -0500 (EST) Received: from web3.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.212]) by frontend1.internal (MEProxy); Thu, 09 Mar 2006 07:24:36 -0500 Received: by web3.messagingengine.com (Postfix, from userid 99) id BB284151DD; Thu, 9 Mar 2006 07:24:36 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <1141907076.25030.256207540@webmail.messagingengine.com> X-Sasl-Enc: 376qPG3PI2uGpEjcAmP9Wr0a5O5nyeAaM3dDGc6+rtqc 1141907076 From: "Jud" To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: MIME::Lite 5022 (F2.73; T1.15; A1.64; B3.05; Q3.03) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 07:24:36 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Promise TX2200/2300 SATA RAID Controllers - New Driver/BIOS Problem X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:25:25 -0000 -Hardware may be a more appropriate list for this followup; the original post was sent to -questions. On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 07:53:28 -0500, "Jud" said: > At the beginning of February, Promise released a new BIOS (version > 2.5.0.3115) for the TX2300 and a new Windows driver (version 2.06.0.311) > for the TX2200/2300. After installing the new BIOS and driver on my > TX2300, neither the BSDINSTALLER iso from early December nor a -CURRENT > installation iso from the end of January recognize my RAID-0 array; the > two drives are seen as ad4 and ad6 rather than ar0. Prior to installing > the new BIOS and driver, the BSDINSTALLER iso did recognize the array as > ar0. > > I'm attempting a reinstall because of an unfortunate concatenation of > two hardware problems. I tried to run glxgears on my Radeon 9500 > (R300), which caused the system to freeze. After a hardware reset, I > ran into the kern/91408 bug. > > I've backed up my Win system and plan to see tonight whether atacontrol > can create ar0 for me. If not, then for the time being I will likely > reflash the BIOS and change the Win driver back to the older versions. Catch-22: atacontrol works fine to create ar0 that can be used for FreeBSD purposes, but on bootup the Promise BIOS shows the array as "Initializing" rather than "Functional." Windows boots, though the Promise WebPAM utility shows array status as "3" (couldn't find the precise meaning of "3" in WebPAM's Help, on the Promise website, or by Googling), which I'm guessing may mean initializing, some degraded level of performance, or an indication of unknown status. Remaking the RAID-0 array so it shows as "Functional" in the new BIOS breaks ar0 in FreeBSD, and it's back to where we started. Looks like going back to the older BIOS and Win driver is currently the only option to create a RAID-0 array that "just works" in FreeBSD. Another oddity: The Promise BIOS allows a stripe size of 128kB, but after running "atacontrol create raid0 250 ad4 ad6," the BIOS shows a stripe size of 64kB (the default) on bootup. Jud