dc5100 boot from SCSI drive?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

Has anybody ever managed to boot a dc5100 Microtower off a SCSI
drive? SCSI does not even appear in the BIOS setup as boot choice.
I tried with a Compaq Array 2DH controller and RAID5 config.
So far I'm booting off a floppy or a CD.

Kind regards, Eike
--
Lions go to absurd lengths to retain the posession of their skins.
- Stewart Edward White 1913

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

Ben Myers wrote:
> Right. The HP/Compaq engineers did not design the computer to boot from a SCSI
> drive, so the SCSI boot choice is omitted. Does the BIOS also omit a choice to
> boot from a 3rd party controller? Have you tried a simple non-RAID SCSI adapter
> like an Adaptec 29160 or 2940UW? If your intent is to use the machine as a
> server with RAID, a simple SCSI adapter won't really help except as a test.
>
> Why not install the operating system on an IDE drive, boot from the IDE drive
> and use the Compaq Array for data only? ... Ben Myers
>
The weird thing is that the desktop BIOS does not refuse the "wrong"
hardware outright but does funny and arbitrary things. But I should
have known this. This is the way I know Compaq BIOSes for more than
15 years :-( they know how to cripple AWARD/Phoenix/etall BIOSes.

Thank you for your concern. I thought of this too but the thing is
that the 2DH BIOS and the dc5100 BIOS are incompatible and the latter
keeps detecting a wrong checksum and resets the BIOS setup to the
default values. I have a 2940UW but it doesn't help. I need real
redundancy in hardware - no software RAID.
Meanwhile we decided to purchase a ML110 for 800 bucks and go with
"real" server hardware. So I can use SMARTstart to setup the RAID
array and leave the SATA channels alone. This will also take care of
the overheating danger, which might occur with so many disk in a
Microtower.
We got another ML350 with RAID5 but using it for the intended
application would be overkill.

Kind regards, Eike
--
Lions go to absurd lengths to retain the posession of their skins.
- Stewart Edward White 1913