Dell R720 no drives detected

[Agremlin]

I just bought an R720, came with 2 SATA drives plugged into backplate. The machine has no raid card and I dont need raid. Came from a data center and used with hypervisor for compute without disks.

In bios there is no mention of disks, in f10 settings, says disk unavailable.

When boot linux says no disks.

How can i enable disks plugged into the backplate? The cables a and b are connected to the motherboard. Bios is 1.6.0. thanks

 

[Agremlin]

I worked out there is no raid controller card (mini type) - its empty just in from of the back right region of server. I have a H310 (pcie adalter type) card from a T3600 workstation, can i use this? If i plug it into pcie slot, what cables do i need to attach to enable the backplate?

 

[vcbb10]

I just got an r720 and a T3600 with a perc H310, ironically.

The r720 normally wants a raid card. There is a controller built into the system, it needs a different cable than what the built in RAID card normally uses. I haven't done this.

Discussion on this: r720 can i connect sas/sata hdd without a controller card?

Cable guide: Dell PowerEdge R720 and R720xd Owner's Manual | Dell Canada

Another option is to replace the DVD drive with an SSD (there are simple adapters on eBay). That's what I'm booting off of right now for mine and using the backplane with TrueNAS. This is SATA 2 speed.

I'd pop the lid off of the server and see what cable is wired right now. If it's going to the larger connector and expecting a RAID card, just buy the H310 mini and flash it to IT mode using Fodeesha's guide (Introduction - Fohdeesha Docs). I recently bought an H310 mini for like $14. If the cable is there, the proper controller is probably cheaper than replacing the cable.

The H310 from the T3600 I think uses a different SAS cable (same as the built in controller). It could probably be used with the right cable to the backplane. You might need 2 SAS cables to get the entire backplane working. Buying the H310 mini is probably easier (again, if the cable is installed).

 

[Agremlin]

I bought a H710P mini. All cables are connected and look in good condition.

When i try hardware diagnostics i get error: "hard drive not cennected or controller not supported".
I then borrowed a H710 mini from another machine and got same message.

Daignostics screen says "internal storage adapter not installed"

Is there something i need to do to enable the H710 controller to be recognized?

 

[vcbb10]

There is a bios setting that can enable or disable an installed RAID controller. I can't remember offhand which menu it is. It is the top option of one of the menus.

Drive configuration on the H710 is done through a separate preboot menu- not the bios. During the boot process it should display some messages about trying to detect drives on boot if the system is seeing the controller.

 

[Agremlin]

Decided to finally pull the server out of storage to sell it, and found, after 2 hours or checking that the h710 mini was not properly seated in the socket. Once firmly in, then it appeared in the startup text and could <CTL><R> into setup for it.