No drives recognized by PERC H310 on dell T5500 new build

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Mar 8, 2016
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I've recently just done a new build on a dell t5500. I'm attempting to install windows 7 pro, along with my Perc H310 and a SSD boot drive and SATA 1tb Storage drive. When try to install Windows and get to the part where i install the PERC drivers, I'm able to view and install them, but then it says no drives were found. There are also no physical drives found in the bios when i do a Ctrl R on bootup as well. I thought installing the drivers would solve this problem, but shouldn't they be seen in bios prior to the drivers being installed during Windows installation?

The card is plugged into the PCI port 1, I've also tried 4. The cables on the card are plugged into A but I've tried B as well. The hard drives are plugged into 0 and 1. 0 is the SSD drive and the SATA is on 1, but I've switched and tried them on both as well. In the Ctrl-r bios all of the options under f2 for vd management are greyed out except clear config which I've done. There are no f2 options for PD mgmnt since there are no drives being recognized.

I've removed the Perc card and connected the hard drives directly to the motherboard and the show up in the mobo bios during boot up, so I know it's not faulty drives.

What am I missing?... I'm completely baffled by this whole situation. Days have gone by with no progress and I need this computer up and running already.
Thanks for your help in advance.
 
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drtweak
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JaredDM

JaredDM

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Jul 8, 2015
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Make sure you've finished configuring it all in the RAID BIOS. You need to create a RAID group first, which is the block storage configuration across the physical disks. Then you need to create a virtual volume over the RAID group. This virtual volume is what gets mounted to the system and no drivers are actually required during the install.

Or are you saying that you can't even get into the RAID BIOS? Maybe the card is bad.
 
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2

2S design

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Mar 8, 2016
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1,510


Thanks for your quick response,
I can get into Raid Bios, What I can't do is make any raid groups, because the hard disks aren't seen at all. They don't show up anywhere (PD or VD). I can't even select them to designate them as non raid configuration. (don't need a raid set up if only doing a boot up drive and 1 storage drive, correct?). The card is good, it shows up in Raid Bios. And the drives are good they show up when directly connected to mobo, they are also brand new. I've followed this documentation for setup exactly (which says drivers need to be installed at time of windows installation)
link
 
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JaredDM

JaredDM

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Jul 8, 2015
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I'm thinking your card is bad. I've had cases come in for recovery where they described exactly the same thing and it was a failed controller. Fortunately these arrays are portable (if you already had any data on there, which it doesn't sound like you did).
 
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2S design

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That's certainly a possibility, but I've contact the seller that I got the card from and they assure me that it was pulled from a working Precision T3600 raid system with discs attached and working. Before I go through the hassle of getting a refund and ordering another one, just to have the same problem, I want to make sure that it's not something that is on my end. Any other suggestions as to what could possibly be preventing the disks from showing up?
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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Sep 17, 2012
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So when you go into the RAID config and go to the PD Mgmt page their are no drives listed at all?

Also the BIOS will NOT show any drives attached to the RAID card only what is on the SATA on the motherboard.

is it a single hard drive? Do you plan on making a RAID or just going to have the one hard drive?
 
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2S design

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Mar 8, 2016
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Correct, NO drives show through CTRL-R BIOS. If i connect them directly to the MOBO and take out the card then the drives show up during the bootup display and in the MOBO bios.

2 hard drives. One Samsung 850 EVO SSD (BRAND NEW) and 1 1TB WD BLACK SATA Drive ( BRAND NEW). It's my understanding that I don't need a raid configuration if I'm just using the SSD as a boot drive and the SATA drive as a storage. Am I mistaken for assuming this? The whole reason I'm using the PERC H310 is to upgrade from 3mbps to 6mbps.
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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1) ANY PERC card is a FULL RAID Card and REQUIRES RAID to be setup. For a single drive you would just set it up as a RAID 0. To get it without doing RAID you need a HBA or Host Bus Adapter that can usually do RAID 1 and 0 as well but do not require RAID to be setup for each drive.

2) The 850's are too new for the H310. I have read multiple people getting this card for the same reason as you and just for what ever reason the H310 can't see the Samsung 850's.

I deal with dell all the time but I haven't come across a H310 though as the servers I deal with are even way low end and have the H200 which is older than the H310 or they use high end RAID cards like the H710/30 H810/30 and that is a mid range RAID Card.

The one thing you may want to do (Because I have read about the 850's working on the 710 cards) is update the firmware.

Firmware could be found here.

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=C19GP

You can run either one of the two first link BUT you must be in windows first so you may have to do a temp install with windows though the onboard SATA, flash the BIOS, then try plugging in the OS.

If you do it this way though you may not have to reinstall the OS. I do this all the time. Take a PC that is failing or need to move it, I install a Dell SAS 5 HBA, it installs the drivers, i power down the machine, plug the SAS HBA in the new machine with the hard drive plugged into the SAS HBA, and it boots up for me.

 
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