Dell EMC 4500 PowerPath and Windows Server 2003

Question

We just upgraded to Windows Server 2003 from Windows 2000 Server and our connectivity to our Dell EMC 4500 SAN completely broke (we could no longer connect to the SAN).  We have an Exchange 2000, SQL 2000,and Windows 2000 file cluster accessing our SAN and fortunately we only upgraded the file server cluster.  When talking to Dell Gold Support they said they have never run into any issues with an upgrade like this to Windows Server 2003 but I don't believe them.  Dell's only recommendation was to rebuild the servers from scratch.Prior to the upgrade we researched the problem on Dell's and EMC's web sites but never found any info concerning Windows Server 2003 support.  We did request and receive a support matrix from Dell stating thatthe Dell/EMC 4500 SAN was supported on Windows 2003 however.Apparently we needed to upgrade our 3.0 version of PowerPath to 3.5 PRIOR to the Windows 2003 upgrade.  PowerPath 3.0 CANNOT be removed or uninstalled from a server if you upgraded to Windows 2003 withoutupgrading to PowerPath 3.5 first.  I wish someone at Dell or EMC would have posted this little known fact on their web-site somewhere.  I can't believe EMC doesn't have a better solution to remove the old version of PowerPath than reinstall Windows.After rebuilding the cluster from scratch with the new version of PowerPath we still could not connect to the SAN.  Dell now recommends that we upgrade the firmware on all the HBA's and the 4500 and 'see if that works'.  We have plenty of other issues as well since one HBA constantly blue screens the server.We haven't upgraded the firmware yet, but I hope that resolves the problem.  Has anyone else run into this issue?   Thanks, Clark

csandlin · Answer

BTW - confirmed the firmware was already up to date with the most current code.  Back to the drawing board.

Eric BY · Answer

The recommended solution for upgrading a server is to remove all SAN software before upgrading the OS. Then once the OS is upgraded, install the correct version of the SAN software for your new operating system.

There are more things that can go wrong with an upgrade than having a older version of Powerpath installed. If the wrong HBA driver was loaded for instance, you could BSOD your system during the upgrade, and not be able to recover w/o reinstall. This is why we recommend before upgrading remove any and all SAN related software.

csandlin · Answer

We've done all that.  We've even rebuilt the servers, replaced the motherboards, power supplies, etc.  The issue is being escalated to Dell's IPS group.  It is definitely a hardware issue but we have been unable to resolve the issue.  We are replacing the 2550's with 2650's (we seem to have no problems on the newer servers).

Eric BY · Answer

I will speak with the IPS engineer / EEC Storage analyst to provide some insight to the case.

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