LSI 9260-8i / WD Caviar Black compatibility

[ridercop]

Hello,

I have a machine with 6 x WD Caviar Black 1 TB (WD1001FALS) HDD.
I just bought the LSI 9260-8i RAID card.
The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7.
Unfortunately, the hard drives seem not to be recognized by the Raid controller.
No hard drive is displayed in the WebBIOS.

Has anyone ever experienced this problem?
How can I solve this?
Thank you for your help.

[Anvil]

I don't think I tried using the WD1001FALS on my 9260. (I'm using them on my PERC 6/i)

What you should do is to install the MSM in Windows. (MegaRaid Software Manager)
Form the MSM you should be able to find out what's happening.

[ridercop]

Actually I want to use my machine as a ESX 4 server.
So I need to attach a HDD directly to the motherboard, install windows and MSM to check what happens.
I will try this configuration tomorrow.
Why will I see what's happening in MSM and not in WebBIOS?

[Anvil]

Using MSM you'd be able to see the error messages (if any).

You should also update the 9260 firmware using the MSM, it could be fixed in the latest firmware.
(if there ever was an issue)

Link to LSI 9260-8i Support and Downloads

[ridercop]

I have installed MSM on Windows Server 2008 x64 and upgrade the LSI card with the latest Firmware but no hard drive is detected on MSM and no error message is present.
Other ideas?

[Anvil]

This is weird, the 9260 have recognized anything I've thrown at it.

Do you happen to have any other drives you could try connecting, anything will do.

It could be the cables or power or that it's not compatible which I highly doubt, anything is possible though.
Did you buy the KIT with the SATA cables or did you get some other cables?

My WD1001FALS drives are used in a raid, otherwise I would have checked myself.

[Poohead]

I've got the same issue with this card. I've tried the OCZ Agility 60GB SSD, Hitachi 1TB SATA HDD, and a Seagate 60GB 2.5" SATA HDD. None of them are shown in the webbios. I RMA'ed the controller thinking it was defective, but the replacement does the exact same thing. The only thing I can think of are incompatible cables. I'm using this one from ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=170423773187

Does anyone have recommendations for cables that are guaranteed to work?

[ridercop]

I have ordered this cable : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-126-_-Product

[Anvil]

@Poohead,
The cable you linked looks to be correct!

@ridercop
That's not what you need!
You need a SFF-8087 (mini SAS) to SATA. (breakout cable)

I'll try a small selection of HDD's on my controller and let you know what drives are working or not.

[Anvil]

OK,

I've just tried connecting 1x WD6400AALS (WD Black) and 1x WD3000GLFS (WD VelociRaptor) and they both work.

Either your cables are bad or your doing something wrong?

I also tried 1x Seagate 7200.12 and theres no problems using that one either.

CaptureWDS.JPG

[ridercop]

The SFF-8482 connector has been designed to be compatible with SATA hard drives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_attached_SCSI
And this is the same cable on the installation guide.
For me, the cable should work.
I don't think I did something wrong:
- I have installed the card on a PCI-E 2.0 port
- Connected the SFF-8087 cable connector to the SFF-8087 card connector
- Connected each SFF-8082 cable connector to a SATA hard drive.

So either the cables are not working, either the controller card is not working, either WD1001FALS HDD are not recognized by this setup.
Unfortunately, I am living in Abu Dhabi and I cannot find this kind of cable here or in Dubai.
I have to order from US/Europe or wait to come back in France for vacation. :s

Thank you for your help and your time