Cable for Dell PERC H330 RAID Controller

I do believe I'm booting legacy right now. I'm making this assumption based off my USB imaging keys, which are all legacy. Traditionally if I had a BIOS set to UEFI, these guys wouldn't boot, so yes, legacy. I'm back at work today but got a million things to do in prep because my entire management staff is leaving for a family emergency over the next few days. Will try imaging an MBR to the SATA drive and see if the BIOS and/or imaging software can recognize it on boot.

Thanks for the info about the MBR ... this whole time I thought I was going crazy or the motherboard had some defect.

Chuck---

You should think about switching to UEFI.  It is faster and more secure.   It is also more extensible so it eliminates many legacy BIOS issues.   I am happy to help you after all you have done for me.  No, you are not crazy the server is smart enough to only list a bootable device.  After you write an MBR on the SATA, it should see it as bootable.

Okay, finished up some paperwork and got back to the server. I have confirmed that the BIOS boot mode is legacy/BIOS, not UEFI. I also imaged my usual USB imaging utility to the spare drive to get an MBR to it. When I boot up, and you get to the BIOS screen where it says "initializing SATA devices" it only shows port E, the DVD drive. It does not show anything for the drive attached to that spare port. However, in Windows, I can see it and use it just fine.

I noticed that even in the BIOS, when I'm looking through SATA settings, I'm set to AHCI. In that setting, (or RAID), all the ports say "unknown device" except for the DVD drive. What else can I look at to see why the BIOS isn't seeing the device?

Another oddity is that if I use the miniSAS port via the original Dell miniSAS to SATA cable, that drive I'm using will detect and boot fine. It just won't boot using the onboard SATA (but will work fine once I'm in Windows).

You results are odd and do not make sense.  If you can, for the fun of it switch to UEFI mode and restart.  Hit F11 to see what boot devices UEFI sees, restart and switch back to legacy BIOS mode.

Dumb question to ask you: how large is your SATA drive?  Is it 2Tb or larger?  Keep in mind for a 2Tb or larger you must use GPT, not MBR.  That would explain why you can't boot off it.

I would also recommend that when you are in the BIOS setup->SATA screen, verify that the system does see the hard drive (model number and size) correctly.

I switched to UEFI years ago; it is far superior to legacy BIOS.  The reason I asked you to try UEFI is I wanted to know what UEFI says are bootable.  What I should have asked you to do is switch to UEFI, boot off your USB key, install Windows on your SATA drive and boot again.  If your T130 booted, that would tell us the problem is legacy BIOS.

Here are some links to help you understand the differences:

http://phoenixts.com/blog/uefi-vs-legacy-bios/ 

http://www.howtogeek.com/175649/what-you-need-to-know-about-using-uefi-instead-of-the-bios/

Yes, they are absolutely odd! I did the UEFI and did a restart. At that point, the system wouldn't recognize anything since my Windows 2008 install was probably done using MBR on the outset. But in the boot devices, UEFI only sees the network card for PXE boot. It won't even see the RAID card. The SATA drive in question was originally a 120GB mSATA to a SATA adapter. However, given all the issues, I started just plugging in the original 1TB 3.5" drive that came with the server. No go. And yes, within the BIOS Setup > SATA Screen, no drive recognizes when using the onboard SATA. It only shows the DVD drive. However, once I switch back to the miniSAS port, they detect just fine.

And lastly, in all cases, Windows will see any hard drive I plug into the onboard SATA port once I'm in Windows. It just won't recognize at boot time. This is probably just some idiosyncrasy either with our BIOS level or our system configuration at purchase time.

Given this situation, it looks like I'll just have to run my 5th drive through the onboard USB 3.0 port. Not super ideal, but it's not like I need to use it on a day to day. It'll be there just for me to save my system images and pre-install/post-install software stuff.

But UEFI ... I've never really known much about it other than it's different boot language altogether. What exactly would I see different if my OS boot drive were booting from UEFI and not legacy? From at least the BIOS boot screen perspective, I could see the BIOS booting within a console window instead of a standard black and white boot screen.

Ah, I see. That's good reading. Yeah, UEFI might be part of my next system build. Because of how all my install media for Windows 7 were created, I had to go through a lot of work to basically turn off UEFI on my newest laptop to install Windows on it using USB sticks. I guess next time I'm due for a format, I'll try doing it using UEFI as the BIOS base. I see some tutorials on how to convert an existing installation to UEFI but it looks pretty invasive. Given that, it makes trying it on my server even more invasive!

I think for the time being, I'll have to assume this is a legacy BIOS issue preventing the system from seeing anything. When I activated UEFI and rebooted, the system only saw the ethernet PXE boot ROM. My USB keys are all MBR, so I was unable to boot from that anyway. 

It's been a nightmare of a week in terms of staffing issues. I ran out of time and need the server to go into production Jan-1. For the time being, I'll do what your above resource says in the section "join a legacy or start your own" and stick to legacy.

Thank you much for the primary on such an interesting topic! 

Chuck---

The Dell cable hasn't arrived yet.  They are estimating it will ship next week, so I will be able to answer your question at that time.   Didn't the Amazon cable work for you?

I held off ordering from Amazon because it was just a bit expensive for a wire. Found something at 4 bucks and change on eBay but didn't order. Wanted to confirm with you when you received it before I did anything else. I haven't ordered directly from Dell in a very long time, but now I do remember that their lead times are really ... long, even for the smallest of items. Let me know how it goes!

Chuck--

I tried to install the Startech cable from Amazon today, but ran into an issue where the PERC H330 has a 4 pin connector while the T130 Intel C236 motherboard has a 2 pin connector.  I can't find the correct cable anywhere, so I am waiting for the Dell cable to ship to me.

That's what I noticed as well. I'm assuming that only two pins are needed to signal the LED. Go ahead and try plugging in the cable as is with RAID card pins {1,2} {2,3} {3,4} or {4,1} + the reverse position on the motherboard, to see if any combination you do can get the LED to work. I'm pretty sure the original cable will probably be a only 2 pin to 2 pin with the extra spots just as filler.

The Dell representative I spoke to never called me back about when the cable might be available so I would love to hear of your result.

Chuck---

I just spoke with my Dell rep.  They expecting the cables back in stock by 1/6/17.  To make up for my waiting for the cable, they said they will send it overnight at no additional cost.

Chuck---

Due to our snowy, freezing conditions, the cable shipment was delayed but finally arrived early this afternoon.  This evening, after office hours, I installed it.  It is color coded (black end goes into the PERC controller, white end plugs into the motherboard).  Booted up the T130 and I have a hard disk activity light again!!  Best $3 I ever spent.

Would you be able to take a quick photo of the pinouts? I called in this morning and surprisingly they told me that cable is still .. out of stock?

On my previous server, I recall never liking the HDD light because it was nonstop. But on the new server, with no light, I miss it, lol. There was something comforting knowing my drives were "blinking away." Once I get a look at the pinout, I think I'll just get that IDC cable off eBay if it fits. my eBay rewards cash just came in, so the cable would be free, yay.

I had a horrendous time setting up our server for production. On New Year's Day, I stayed after hours to pull all our old PoS terminals and server only to find that some type of bug (not sure if it's hardware or software yet) was causing our receipt printers to not recognize the PoS software at boot, kicking in a failsafe that shuts down the terminals. I swapped cables, printers, comm boards, to find the issue to be intermittent on 3 out of 4 of the machines. We even used sandpaper to clean the power connectors, which were somewhat blackened from years of use. By 4 a.m., I gave up and pulled all the terminals and server and put back the entire original set. @.@

At the same time, some fellows very cautiously disassembled our side door and removed the door's glass paneling to get in. My heart dropped to the floor as I saw two freaks in ski masks come out of a dark corner of the market at 2 a.m. They were probably as panicked as I was since they didn't know anyone was still in the building - all the lights were off. They took off back into a waiting car as soon as they saw me. 5 police officers had a conversation as we looked at the door in the rain. "We're trying to figure out how to file your case because technically, it's no longer 'breaking and entering' since they disassembled it and there is no actual break/damage... "

I spent the next 5 days imaging/re-imaging the terminals, trying out different software configurations, thinking maybe I had broken something. I then spent a full Friday after driving up north 2 hours to the NCR branch office to image my terminals there. They had given me a new image on the spot, which was good. I didn't have any terminal shutdown issues the whole day. Then I went again for 1 more round of installation. The **** terminals were still shutting down. Real random, hit and miss. As soon as I could get them to initialize, they would work, so I just left them there without turning them off like I usually do. Waiting on new receipt printers but also found a firmware update for them that describes a fix for "terminal shutdown issue" in the readme's. 

I'm going to categorize this entire ordeal into the 2016 Lunar Year, which isn't quite over yet. 2017 better be way way way better ...

Btw, EMR, you notice for such a simple issue as a RAID card cable, how many views our thread has gotten? LOL - Happy New Year!