Users Guide
Q: When I change my hard drive controller from SCSI to RAID (or RAID to SCSI), the system prompts me for conrmation
during POST. How can I stop this from happening?
A: Use the --noraidprompt option with the --embscsiraid option to prevent the system from prompting during POST. Data loss
results from changing the state of the disk controller, so you must be certain before skipping the prompt. There is no method for
using the ‑‑noraidprompt in the input le. If you want to change the controller state through an input le, you must congure your
script to call the SYSCFG.EXE utility twice, once to specify the input le, and once to change the controller state with the --
noraidprompt option.
Q: What do I do if the PARTCFG script fails?
A: Ensure that DT_HD is set to the required disk to be congured before you execute the PARTCFG script.
RAIDCFG questions
Q: Why does RAIDCFG display an error message when I use an invalid read, write, and cache policies and/or stripe sizes for a
particular controller?
A: All RAID controllers have their own default read, write, and cache policies and stripe sizes. It is possible that if you provide an
invalid policy or a stripe size for a particular controller, RAIDCFG may not give an error but creates the virtual disk with the default
policy and/or stripe size.
Q: When I execute RAIDCFG with the RAID level of "01," RAIDCFG creates RAID 1, not RAID 01.
A: This behavior occurs because the RAIDCFG CLI parser ignores zeros preceding any parameter value. For example, -r=01 is parsed
as -r=1.
Q: What is strict creation?
A: Strict creation is an optional ag that has been added to the create virtual disk command. It allows you to create virtual disks only
if the array disks (that is, hard drives) are within a specied percentage of disk space of each other.
Q: Why is the drive location of array disks displayed like 0:0:0?
A: The nexus used to display array disks is "channel:target:lun." The Logical Unit Number (LUN) is always "0." The channel and the
target IDs are necessary to identify array disks when dealing with SCSI devices.
When dealing with SAS devices, the array disk location is displayed as channel:target:enclosure. It is possible to have the enclosure
value as non-zero. If the enclosure has a non-zero value, then all three numbers (channel, target, and enclosure) have to be included
on the command line.
Q: Do I need to specify RAID type and size when creating virtual disks?
A: No. The default RAID type is RAID 0. If RAID size is not provided, the maximum size allowed for virtual disk is created. The
mandatory elds required to create virtual disks are the controller slot ID and the array disks.
Q: What is a hot spare (failover drive)?
A: A hot spare is an extra and unused disk drive that is part of an array disk subsystem. A hot spare is always in standby mode. If a
disk failure occurs, the hot spare replaces the failed drive without interrupting the system.
Q: What is mr2kserv.exe?
A: The mr2kserv.exe is a service needed to congure all LSI RAID controllers in Windows PE. It provides Plug and Play support.
Q: What features have changed from the MS-DOS version of RAIDCFG to the Windows PE and embedded Linux versions?
A: Windows PE and embedded Linux version of RAIDCFG support new controllers. For the list of supported controllers, see Dell
EMC Systems Software Support Matrix at dell.com/openmanagemanuals.
Features that have been removed from the MS-DOS version include:
• The --name and --wait options in the create command
• The --runlocation and the --scratchlocation options
• The --getpercentcomplete environment variables
Q: Why cannot I see any controllers using RAIDCFG?
A: Ensure that the RAID controllers can be seen in the BIOS during POST. If the BIOS does not detect the controller, then RAIDCFG
does not detect it. Also ensure that the controller is set to RAID mode and not any other mode in the controller BIOS.
Q: What is span length?
62