**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Sat Feb 01 03:00:26 2020 Feb 01 06:26:23 https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-FK1lqE9mphI/XjUZA0c5khI/AAAAAAAAD_8/89lRdLh5QhoHvnJQKqlTZnJk-4zc716AACK8BGAsYHg/s0/2020-01-31.jpg Feb 01 06:27:50 The drive cases finally arrived at my office today, literally one month since I ordered them from DealExtreme. I still need to try using one of them. It looks like I was correct that the circuit board uses screws instead of retaining clips to hold the mSATA card/drive in place. Too bad but I guess I should not complain for the price I paid. Feb 01 06:43:10 Bleh, it uses screws to hold the circuit board in the plastic case too and the mSATA drive is not visible through the case so the label on the mSATA drive is not visible without removing the screws to open the case. Seems like a bad design but I could only buy one or maybe two of the apparently better designed StarTech drive cases for what I paid for ten of these cheap drive cases from Asia. Feb 01 07:25:41 Apparently getting a Dell PowerEdge 2950 server computer to boot from a SATA SSD that is a clone of the SATA HDD from which the same computer in the same configuration booted without a problem is much easier said than done. Why does the computer not just automatically boot from the new drive, which is a clone of the old drive? Maybe this behaviour is normal for actual server computer hardware but it seems counterintuitive for desktop/notebook computer Feb 01 07:25:41 hardware. We should have gotten a normal desktop computer, which would have been much quieter and would have firmware that behaves normally but this computer was bought in 2014 or earlier and it was not my choice to buy it. Feb 01 08:25:29 I lost the message I wrote because I accidentally pressed Ctrl+Q (Quit) instead of Ctrl+A (Select All). I got the computer to boot from the SATA SSD but only if the RAID controller is enabled and I have to press a key before the computer will boot from the SATA SSD. The RAID controller should be disabled because this computer has only ever had one HDD or SSD installed at once but I cannot get the computer to boot from the SATA SSD unless the RAID Feb 01 08:25:29 controller is enabled. I have spent way too much time on this crap by now, will leave the “fun” for another day. Feb 01 08:27:51 s/one HDD/one physical HDD/ Feb 01 08:30:40 The “rotational” pseudofile for sda in sysfs is 1 instead of 0 even though this computer now has only an SSD, not an HDD. (fail) Feb 01 09:31:27 When you are trying to do it without having it in RAID mode, do you at least see the device in the boot order menu? Feb 01 09:32:48 afaik BIOSes tend to have the settings based around SATA slots, so if you put it in a different slot, it's subject to different boot settings. Feb 01 09:36:35 I do not know if this computer was even designed for the use case of having only a single physical HDD or SSD without using RAID because this computer is a rackmount server with hot-pluggable 2.5-inch HDD/SSD bays on the front, not a regular desktop computer. Feb 01 09:37:24 I would imagine it should support non-RAID mode regardless. Feb 01 09:37:50 but the boot sequence options will almost certainly involve different configuration depending on whether it's in RAID mode. Feb 01 09:38:44 that is, you can probably enable/disable individual drives from being booted when in non-RAID mode, but in RAID mode, it will presumably show a separate device which could be enabled/disabled as a boot device. Feb 01 09:39:19 There should be some menu where you set boot priority. You should see if you can see the SSD in that menu. Feb 01 09:40:20 I would personally be wary of using the "RAID" functionality provided by a motherboard, even if it's only over one drive. Feb 01 09:41:54 since unless you're using some dedicaded RAID card that has an NVRAM or backup battery solution for power loss, you're certainly going to be subject to write hole issues if you're using two drives. Feb 01 09:42:44 and since you have that lack of consistency for two drives, I would wonder if people really expect to care when they're using one drive in RAID mode. Feb 01 09:45:15 I saw something about “ATA mode” but do not know what that means in this context, maybe PATA emulation mode versus AHCI for the SATA host controller? The only way I was able to get the computer to boot from the SATA SSD was to use the setup program for the host controller/RAID controller to create some type of virtual drive from the single physical drive, apparently using RAID 0 (is that striping?) but then I still have to press a key after the firmware Feb 01 09:45:15 stops while booting to get the computer to boot from the SATA SSD. I have little experience with working on site with actual server computers as opposed to desktop/notebook computers and remotely accessing an actual server computer in a data centre in a different metropolitan area. Feb 01 09:46:22 RAID0 is striping, yes. Feb 01 09:47:26 also, presumably when you're using the RAID mode, you don't get regular access to SMART on the drive. Feb 01 09:56:02 I wonder if the RAID controller is a physical device, such as a plug-in card, that I can remove since I do not want to use RAID. I think the RAID controller is integrated on the motherboard because the motherboard firmware setup program has an option for whether the RAID controller should be enabled. If I disable the RAID controller then I cannot get the computer to boot from the SATA SSD but the computer seems to have noticed that I replaced the SATA HDD Feb 01 09:56:02 with a SATA SSD even though the new drive is a clone of the old drive. I guess I should search the Internet for how to use the PowerEdge 2950 with a single physical HDD/SSD without using RAID but I expected that the computer would just boot unattended after replacing the drive so I already had to connect a video monitor and keyboard just to see why the computer was not available on the network because usually this computer is only accessed over the network Feb 01 09:56:02 after the OS is running from the HDD or SSD. Feb 01 10:40:46 Wow, with WineVDM on my office computer, I actually have the Comet Busters New Executable file running on Windows 10 for x86-64! The WavMix16 DLL is not correctly installed so Comet Busters seems to be using PC speaker sound effects that are emulated using the normal “sound card” (actually just an IC on the motherboard) but these simple sound effects seem to have stopped working after playing the game for a while. Feb 01 10:42:16 Apparently WineVDM is sufficiently advanced technology. Feb 01 12:04:13 Apparently it works with the “sound card” too but I always reach game over on level 2. Feb 01 12:06:16 I wonder if the network multiplayer works with Windows 7 for x86-64 on another computer in my office. Feb 01 23:37:29 Maxdamantus: https://www.dell.com/community/PowerEdge-HDD-SCSI-RAID/PowerEdge-2950-Boot/td-p/4449992 Search the page for “without raid”. It sounds like the drive bays at the front of the PowerEdge 2950 are connected to a RAID host controller card but that the motherboard also has SATA host ports but they are not intended to have an HDD/SSD connected to them. So, this seems to explain why I can only boot from the SATA SSD installed in the drive Feb 01 23:37:29 bay/backplane/I do not know my terminology for actual server computer hardware in the front using RAID. I guess I should try to connect the SATA SSD directly to the motherboard even if that requires disconnecting the internal ODD. I can probably use a USB ODD if I ever need an ODD on this computer again now that the OS is already installed on the HDD/SSD in the computer. Feb 01 23:55:20 Now that you mention an ODD, is that ODD connected directly to one of the motherboard's SATA ports? Because if so, you might want to try connecting it to a different one. Feb 01 23:55:56 Usually the M.2 SATA slot is physically shared with one of the SATA ports. Feb 01 23:57:16 since the CPU/chipset will have a particular number of logical SATA ports (eg, 6 or 8), and the motherboard will usually provide physical SATA ports for all of those logical ports, and if it supports M.2, it will reuse one of the physical ports there. Feb 02 00:00:18 nvm, you didn't mention M.2 Feb 02 00:00:49 I removed the top of the case to see the internals of the computer. The SATA(PI) ODD is connected to the SATA B connector on the motherboard. The SATA A connector on the motherboard has nothing connected. This model of computer is apparently from 2007 so I think it predates M.2 and maybe even mSATA. I guess I could use a caddy/adapter designed to install a 2.5-inch HDD or SSD in the drive bay used by an ODD in a notebook computer in the drive bay used Feb 02 00:00:49 for the ODD in this computer. I think the samsung700z notebook computer of my father from 2012 that died a year or two ago has one of these caddies/adapters I can reuse. This situation actually seems to make sense now because the motherboard firmware refers to or mentions something like SATA A and SATA B ports but only shows the ODD for these ports. Feb 02 00:01:27 but it sounds like the "RAID" option is using a separate card. Does the motherboard only have one physical SATA port? Feb 02 00:02:03 You'd certainly want to connect the drive to the board directly if you want to avoid going through the RAID card. Feb 02 00:02:22 (connect the drive to the motherboard) Feb 02 00:03:02 The motherboard has at least two SATA host ports using normal SATA connectors. I only see two SATA ports and the motherboard firmware only mentions two ports so I think it has only two ports. Feb 02 00:15:41 https://scontent.fyvr1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.15752-9/p1080x2048/84556287_185078556069073_3850752688434184192_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&_nc_oc=AQn9TRvDfXyFR9FfvUlj3ajX9JDefUEYyAmhcHXU0vlCOyZz_Px0b9XEaBOl4b28qTU&_nc_ht=scontent.fyvr1-1.fna&_nc_tp=6&oh=5f47c735e663fe62f24c4d0ab6e2cb24&oe=5EC670AE Feb 02 00:17:47 The blue SATA data cable for the ODD is connected to the SATA B port on the motherboard. The unused SATA connector on the motherboard is for the SATA A port. Feb 02 00:19:08 Okay. From Googling, it sounds like you can enable/disable the two SATA ports, and I get the impression it might be an error for a drive to not be detected in an enabled SATA port, so maybe you need to enable the currently-unused one. Feb 02 00:26:43 The SATA(PI) ODD uses a slimline SATA connector instead of normal, separate SATA data and wide SATA power connectors so I cannot directly replace the ODD with the 2.5-inch SATA drive case for the mSATA SSD. I have to either use the caddy for a notebook computer ODD bay or try to fit an LP4 to SATA power adapter/cable in the available space. Or find a slimline SATA to normal SATA adapter, which I guess is commercially available? Feb 02 01:13:42 I solved one problem but now I have a new problem. I removed the slimline SATA to 2.5-inch normal SATA drive caddy from the samsung700z notebook computer that died, used this caddy to connect the 2.5-inch normal SATA drive case for the mSATA SSD to the SATA_A port on the PowerEdge 2950 motherboard. Now the PowerEdge boots the OS (Ubuntu) from the mSATA SSD connected as a normal SATA drive without using RAID but I still have to press at least one key while Feb 02 01:13:42 the computer is booting and apparently the fans are always running full speed, which is very loud. Any idea why the fans do not automatically change to the slow/quieter mode? The rotational pseudofile for sda now contains 0, as it should, because the SSD is connected directly to the motherboard as a normal SATA drive, not connected to the RAID controller. Feb 02 01:16:55 I think the fans may have eventually slowed because they seem quieter now. **** ENDING LOGGING AT Sun Feb 02 02:59:57 2020