NASLite Network Attached Storage

I purchased and installed NASLite-2 HDD on a system I built a system out of spare parts. I my initial configuration, the system booted from a 64MB solid state IDE drive with two additional 60GB drives attached to a Dell CERC (Cost Effective RAID Controller) ATA100/4Ch. Everything configured fine and was working under initial testing. After my testing was completed, I removed the 60GB drives and installed four 300GB and four 250GB drives on to the CERC controller. Initially, the CERC showed all the drives as 131GB so I flashed the BIOS (from Dell) from 6.61/1.01 to 6.62/1.03. After the flash I configured two logical drives and booted into NASLite. From this point on, NASLite does not recognize the logical drives. I have tried it both with the BIOS enabled and disabled with no luck. Here is a snippet of the system log. It seems to find the logical drives here, but I can't configure them.

Apr 28 19:14:01 user.notice kernel: megaraid: v2.10.10.1 (Release Date: Thu Jan 27 16:19:44 EDT 2005)
Apr 28 19:14:01 user.notice kernel: megaraid: found 0x101e:0x1960:bus 0:slot 10:func 0
Apr 28 19:14:01 user.notice kernel: scsi1:Found MegaRAID controller at 0xe000c000, IRQ:11
Apr 28 19:14:01 user.notice kernel: megaraid: [6.62:1.03] detected 2 logical drives.
Apr 28 19:14:01 user.notice kernel: megaraid: supports extended CDBs.
Apr 28 19:14:01 user.info kernel: megaraid: channel[0] is raid.
Apr 28 19:14:01 user.info kernel: megaraid: channel[1] is raid.
Apr 28 19:14:01 user.info kernel: megaraid: channel[2] is raid.
Apr 28 19:14:01 user.info kernel: megaraid: channel[3] is raid.
Apr 28 19:14:01 user.info kernel: scsi1 : LSI Logic MegaRAID 6.62 254 commands 16 targs 7 chans 7 luns

If I flash the CERC back to 6.61, NASLite detects the logical drives but I am limited to 132GB partitions. 6.62 seems to be the final firmware update for this controller (from Dell and LSI). Any suggestions would be appreciated.


Edit:

I noticed that this was a little wordy. In short here is my problem...

w/ fw 6.61: Logical drives usable by NASLite 2, controller limits drives to 131GB
w/ fw 6.62: Logical drives not usable by NASLite 2, controller displays drives correctly

I initially couldn't see a drive >128GiB (137GB) with my original LSI MegaRAID i4 (511, Dell OEM).

I flashed with an LSI BIOS and had no problems seeing a 2x200GB-R0 logical drive. From memory the firmware version was N661 (I'll check and edit).

how do you mean you can't configure them ?

iirc (and it's been a while since i set mine up...)

you have to mount and format them before you can do anything

I create them within the RAID controller just fine. With the 6.62 firmware, the logical drives don't show up so I can't mount or format them. They will with the 6.61, but then I am limited to 131GB pre drive.

I did find this little tidbit about my controller and Ubuntu...



Is the Megaraid 4i and the Dell CERC 100/4ch the same controller? If so, I my try this....

They are basically the same controller with differently branded firmwares.

You can try both latest firmwares (LSI and DELL) and see which one works best for you:

http://www.lsi.com/files/support/rsa/N661.zip

http://ftp.us.dell.com/ide/CERC-FW667.exe

The DELL one will create a bootable diskette including an "automated" firmware update procedure.

Cheers.

NickC is right

download the Dell utility and replace the rom file with the rom file from lsi's website and you will have luck. I just fixed the problem on my own NL by reading this topic.

Worked for me.

1. Grab
http://www.lsi.com/files/support/rsa/N661.zip
http://ftp.us.dell.com/ide/CERC-FW667.exe
2. Make the floppy w/the CERC-FW667.exe
3. Unzip the N661
4. Delete the FW667.rom off the floppy
5. Open the N661 folder and rename the 511GEN.rom to FW661.rom
6. Put newly renamed FW667.rom on the floppy
7. Reboot

A few things of note, you will need an unzipping program, a floppy drive and a working floppy. Don't forget to set the floppy to boot in the BIOS.

Weird thing is the 667 firmware works in everything else. After downgrading (flashing to the 661) I saw during the boot sequence (I think that's what it's called for NASLITE2) I saw "Disk-1.....Fail" So I went into the Storage configuration. Selected disk 1, then used option 8 to format it. After formatting I Export Disk-1 to RW. I rebooted and walla!

Before Flash


After Flash


Final prompt before beginning the flash