PowerEdge(TM) SC440 Server cannot Install Redhat3 cannot detect any HDD

Like Dev Mgr, I suspect that RHEL 3 is too old to have drivers for the SAS 5/iR controller. You'll either have to find a driver, or try a more modern operating system. If you don't want to pay the licensing fees for RHEL, CentOS is almost exactly the same OS as RHEL, and is free.

You may need to check if there's a red hat 3 SATA drives, or just upgrade to something a bit more modern like red hat 4 or 5.

thanks to you guys!

 

I successfully installed RHEL4 no problem arise but we need RHEL3 coz we are going to install another software which our partner using the same RHEL3 also.

 

I use lspci in RHEL4 and this is one of the result about SAS.

02:08.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068 PCI-X Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 1f09
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV+ VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66Mhz+ UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- SERR- Latency: 72 (16000ns min, 2500ns max), Cache Line Size 10
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 169
Region 0: I/O ports at dc00 [disabled]
Region 1: Memory at efdec000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Region 3: Memory at efdf0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Expansion ROM at efe00000 [disabled] [size=1M]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
Capabilities: [98] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
Address: 0000000000000000 Data: 0000
Capabilities: [68] PCI-X non-bridge device.
Command: DPERE- ERO- RBC=0 OST=6
Status: Bus=2 Dev=8 Func=0 64bit+ 133MHz+ SCD- USC-, DC=simple, DMMRBC=2, DMOST=6, DMCRS=4, RSCEM-
Capabilities: [b0] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=1
Vector table: BAR=1 offset=00002000
PBA: BAR=1 offset=00003000

 

do dell have a driver for this LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068 PCI-X Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 01)?

POWEREDGE NOT SUPPORTED RHEL3?????????????? what can you say about this?

 

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/alliances/en/os_certifications?c=ie&cs=RC1078533&l=en&s=pad&~tab=6

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/alliances/en/os_certifications?c=ie&cs=RC1078533&l=en&s=pad&~tab=4

http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/alliances/en/os_certifications?c=my&cs=mybsd1&l=en&s=bsd&~tab=6

POWEREDGE SC440 is not supported by RHEL3 but according to their User Guide page 22 Use the procedures in this section to install the driver for Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (version 3,4, and 5) and ES (version 3,4, and 5)

I don't know about this they said version 3,4 and 5 :-)

None of those grids show RHEL3 support for the SC440 to my reading.

 

"Enterprise" Linux distributions take a conservative snapshot of the state of development when they're released, and keep that up to date with security patches. RHEL3 is pretty ancient now, and whilst I'm not up to date on exactly which kernels are offered, they're not going to acquire support for all newer hardware items out there.

 

 

You might be able to get this server working in RHEL 3 by dropping the SAS 5/iR and connecting the drives to the motherboard controller. You'll lose the hardware RAID, but you may be able to get software RAID working in the OS.

 

I believe that you can only hold with the "Enterprise Linux" strategy for so long. I see posts on the support lists of various pieces of software (FreeRADIUS and dovecot amongst others) where the answer is simply that a desired feature is either not present or is broken in the Enterprise Linux distribution in question, and that a newer version of the software is needed.

 

 

Unfortunately the time comes where you have to break out of Enterprise Linux distribution and update somehow. Your application continuing to hold to RHEL 3 is becoming unsustainable, and you really need to do something about that from a maintenance perspective.

 

For now, if you can't deploy the server you have with RHEL 3, ideally you'd go back to whoever is responsible for the application in question and get them to update it to a more modern operating system. If you can't do that, you have to make an environment for this operating system. If you have other servers, you could shuffle them around and run this application on RHEL 3 on an older machine (though be aware that hardware does age, as it has a finite life). The other option is to virtualise - run RHEL 3 as a virtual machine hosted on an up to date operating system.

 

 

Virtualisation does provide a route to run applications that require an older operating system, but you have to be aware of code rot; just because you can keep it running doesn't mean that you don't get problems from lack of maintenance. For example, there comes a point where vendor support is dropped for the older operating system that you're hosting in your virtual machine, which means that security fixes are no longer available.