HP Xw8400 HP xw Workstation series - Transition from PATA optical disc drives - Page 7

Two identical SATA optical disc drive models connected to the SAS ports If you have two identical SATA optical disc drives connected to SAS ports on an xw8400, the SAS controller might not initialize properly, and either of the drives might not be available for use. A delay occurs when loading the Option ROM of the SAS controller, which can take up to two minutes. A suggested workaround is to move one of the drives to a SATA port. There are no plans to correct this issue on the xw8400. Auto boot order If two SATA optical disc drives are installed on an xw8400, the machine will auto boot to the drive connected to the lowest SATA port number. A suggested workaround is to choose the Optical Drive option by pressing F9 during POST. This issue will be corrected in a later revision of the system BIOS. HP xw9400 Workstation The following topics are specific to the HP xw9400 Workstation. Boot to DOS The xw9400 can boot to DOS when SATA RAID is enabled or disabled. If SATA RAID is enabled, then you must ensure that RAID is disabled on the SATA port that the SATA optical disc drive is connected to. You cannot boot to DOS if the SATA optical disc drive is connected to a SAS port. HP is investigating possible solutions to the limitations that currently exist when a SATA optical disc drive is attached to an onboard SAS port. DLA With RAID mode disabled a 3rd party DOS SATA CD-ROM driver will detect and address the SATA optical disc drive, therefore mscdex.exe will be able to assign a drive letter to the drive to provide DLA. With RAID mode enabled, neither oakcdrom.sys nor a 3rd party DOS SATA CD-ROM driver will detect the SATA optical disc drive, therefore no DLA is available. Workarounds for when RAID mode is enabled are: • If DLA is required to access tools and/or utilities, then place these files on a network share. • Change SATA RAID settings to a mode that meets your needs for imaging. If the SATA RAID mode is changed for the purpose of imaging, then be sure the setting is reverted to the emulation mode on which the image was created. Two identical SATA optical disc drive models connected to the SAS ports If you have two identical SATA optical disc drives connected to SAS ports on an xw9400, then the SAS controller might not initialize properly, and either of the drives might not be available for use. A delay occurs when loading the Option ROM of the SAS controller, which can take up to two minutes. A suggested workaround is to move one of the drives to a SATA port. There are no plans to correct this issue on the xw9400.