Snap server 4100 LBA48 large capacity drives

[Peter]

I'm working on solving 137Gb limitation on 4100 snap server.
At this stage I'm collecting informations about hardware.
More specificaly I'm looking for somebody who has knowledge about Intel 82371 PIIX4 PCI Set Chip. We are all aware that this unit is fully capable of utilizing larger drives (over 137GB) I belive that with my knowledge of hardware and a software Guru's knowledge we can simply enable LBA48 support. Look forward to your comments. Please respond to this thread or send me a PM.

Thanks,

[SnappedUP]

Peter,
Good to talk last night - I'll keep you posted on anything I find.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by SnappedUP

Peter,
Good to talk last night - I'll keep you posted on anything I find.

Yes I was looking for picture of model 4000.
When I did see the picture, I found that model 4000 and 4100 are in deed two very different models. Especially they are different in the way how they control IDE drives.
My idea was to copy BIOS from 4000 series in to 4100 series server. But as I found it is impossible, because both units using different IDE controllers. In this situation the firmware swap will not work.
It is sad, but engineers at Adaptec did really good job to protect their future sale. This unit (4100) has been designed to do not support large hard drives.

[rami]

has anyone looked at flashing these with the dell equivilent?

[Davesworld]

Originally Posted by rami

has anyone looked at flashing these with the dell equivilent?

That would be a cakewalk. One only needs to unlock the bios, set it to oem and relock it. Trouble is, it's outdated. Many Dell users convert to SnapOS usage to have the niceities of OS 4.

[Technophobe]

I did have access to a Dell for a while and the Nice Dell people sent me a copy of the latest OS which was t overcome the the same issues as 4.0.088 so maybe it is the same, I no longer have access to the sever but, if anyone is intereseted I'll search my archives - I should still have a copy.

[jontz]

We are always interested in software goodies. If you can dig it up that would be great! And yes, Adaptec has done a wonderful job keeping these machines from using large drives. The problem lies in the promise controller itself. The driver for it is flawed...

[re3dyb0y]

Yeah

Softwares good

[jontz]

Originally Posted by Peter

Yes I was looking for picture of model 4000.
When I did see the picture, I found that model 4000 and 4100 are in deed two very different models. Especially they are different in the way how they control IDE drives.
My idea was to copy BIOS from 4000 series in to 4100 series server. But as I found it is impossible, because both units using different IDE controllers. In this situation the firmware swap will not work.
It is sad, but engineers at Adaptec did really good job to protect their future sale. This unit (4100) has been designed to do not support large hard drives.

The 4000 uses a software raid setup with two IDE controllers, whereas the 4100 is a hardware raid config with four IDE controllers. Very different beasts. The problems lies in the 4100's Promise controller, or rather the driver for it. You would have to dump the intel chip on the mobo that has the OS on it, decompile it, and then create a new driver that would fix the LBA48 bit issue. No one has even been willing or able to get the code off of the intel chip yet. Just wanted to give you a heads up what you are in for.

[blue68f100]

Has any one taken the 4100 and connected 2 drives (S/M) per controller. This is what is used to seperate different models.

[re3dyb0y]

Originally Posted by Davesworld

That would be a cakewalk. One only needs to unlock the bios, set it to oem and relock it. Trouble is, it's outdated. Many Dell users convert to SnapOS usage to have the niceities of OS 4.

The OS isn't teh same as the Bios

[blue68f100]

On the FreeBSD OS which Snap OS is based off of, you can have the BIOS set to NO DRIVES. The FreeBSD reads the drive parameters directly from the drives on startup. This way you can work around bios that do not support larger drives.

I have old pc thay the BIOS only supports 40 gig. Turning off the detection in the BIOS it can read and mount a 120gig HD with no problems.

Also on the 4000 with sn >7070042 use C/S . The older models use M/S. Apparently a hardware change.

So maybe changing the jumper on a 4100 to something other than M may have an impact.

Just a thought.

I know for sure that the sup file loads different/additional software for the Meridian vs Guardian snaps.

You ask How do I know that ???
.
.
I have studied the sup files used in upgrading the snaps.

[re3dyb0y]

We need to get a copy of the BIOS's off dont we and then find a programmer with the skills.....

[cianwill]

Originally Posted by blue68f100

Has any one taken the 4100 and connected 2 drives (S/M) per controller. This is what is used to seperate different models.

I have tried that and am unsuccessful thus far... It' sees that there is something there, but just says invalid configuration. I have tried several different sized drives and jumper configurations as well. Next I am going to tinker with the IDE connector labled ISP...

[blue68f100]

cianwill, What are you trying to accomplish????

This configuration can work but the mod (BIOS flag change) may make the unit un-usable .
Because they do not have a 8 drive unit. It jumps from 4 to 12.

[cianwill]

All I did was see if it could recognize 2 drives on 1 ide connection as m/s...but it did not work. I was trying it due to the LBA48 restriction on the 4100's...oh well.
Is there any way possible for me to get a copy of 3.4.805 or 4.x from one of you guys? My 4000 is 3.4.772 and I can't get past the 137Gb range until I upgrade correct?

[blue68f100]

If you realy want to see if it sees more drive you need to change the "bios model" enter it from debug and it should tell you what your current setting is and what options are available.

BUT BE WARNED, IF IT DOESN'T SEE WHAT IT'S LOOKING FOR "KISS IT GOOD BYE" some have recovered but the odds are greatly against you.

[cbaker391]

Hi all, a noobe here with too much time on his hands.. I had a snap server 2000 lying around and did some pinout-ing of the Com1 and ISP connectors. Maybe this'll be of use to somebody. I only listed the ones I was successfully able to trace, the others I couldn't find.

info;
model 70700027-002
board FAB# 70715021 Rev B

The pics attached shows what I found.