Windows Server 2016 and FC disk shelf

[Edelrat]

Hello everyone,

 

I have a FC disk shelf (KTB-STL4 to be exact) connected to my Windows Server 2016 machine with a Qlogic QLE2560 HBA.

The drives are showing up fine in Windows disk mgmt, but I can't initialize the drives in the shelf or bring them online (some are already online for some reason).

When I try to do any of this, I get the following error: 'incorrect function'.

Error it gives me in the event log: VDS fails to write boot code on a disk during clean operation Error code: 80070001@02070008

The drives in the shelf are Seagate 1TB SATA HDDs, so I don't think it has anything to do with block size or any of that stuff (please correct me if I am wrong). The disks also work flawless when I put them directly into the machine.

I had this working on FreeNAS, the only problem I had was that I had to put the HBA-port into initiator-mode before it worked. I don't think this is the issue either, since the drives are already showing up in Windows.

 

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

[leadeater]

Likely have to clean the drives using diskpart clean or use a secure erase tool, disks probably have array configuration header data interfering with disk manager.

[Edelrat]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

Likely have to clean the drives using diskpart clean or use a secure erase tool, disks probably have array configuration header data interfering with disk manager.

Still the same thing after doing clean in diskpart on every disk.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, MEOOOOOOOOOOOOW said:

Still the same thing after doing clean in diskpart on every disk.

Try taking the disks out and doing the clean with them plugged in to the motherboard, sometimes that's worked for me.

[Edelrat]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Try taking the disks out and doing the clean with them plugged in to the motherboard, sometimes that's worked for me.

When connecting them directly to the MB i can initialize them/bring them online without any problems. Clean also works.

I also swapped one that was previously connected to the MB and already had a volume on it with one in the shelf.

The one that previously had a volume on it is no longer showing it when in the shelf, the one that didn't show anything when in the shelf actually still has a old volume on it when connected to the MB,

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, MEOOOOOOOOOOOOW said:

When connecting them directly to the MB i can initialize them/bring them online without any problems. Clean also works.

I also swapped one that was previously connected to the MB and already had a volume on it with one in the shelf.

The one that previously had a volume on it is no longer showing it when in the shelf, the one that didn't show anything when in the shelf actually still has a old volume on it when connected to the MB,

Hmm maybe it is the initiator mode then? Could even be sector alignment, see if there is any special notes on that sort of thing anywhere in EMC documentation. I know Netapp use funky sectors size but that shouldn't really be a factor here since you aren't using EMC controllers. The disk shelf should just be straight passthrough.

[Edelrat]

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

Hmm maybe it is the initiator mode then? Could even be sector alignment, see if there is any special notes on that sort of thing anywhere in EMC documentation. I know Netapp use funky sectors size but that shouldn't really be a factor here since you aren't using EMC controllers. The disk shelf should just be straight passthrough.

My best guess is initiator mode too. I doubt it's anything EMC specific, since I have the same model of shelf working currently (even with the same HBA, but with FreeNAS). I really doubt that it's the HDDs too, because at the moment they are just random drives I had laying around, most of them never saw an EMC controller. I will try another HBA next (with the one I am about to try I at least was able to use a iSCSI LUN from FreeNAS over FC without any problems under windows, maybe that will work.

I will let you know what my results are.

[Edelrat]

@leadeater

With the other HBA, the drives didn't show up at all. I will probably just use FreeNAS as my OS and pass the drives though to a VM, will probably be the easiest thing to do.

Thanks for your help anyway!