Omega 8114-T will not boot from 2TB Western Digital Caviar drives

Problem:

Omega 8114-T will not boot from 2TB Western Digital Caviar drives

Details:

After upgrading the hard disks to Western Digital Caviar 2TB drives, the system cannot boot from the drive.

Affected Systems:

Affected Drives:

Solution:

This is a compatibility issue between the Western Digital drives and the motherboard BIOS. Due to the age of these motherboards, there is no firmware upgrade to resolve the problem.

To install larger capacity drives, please choose from the following list of tested disk models:

BIOS upgrade procedure:

To support drives 1TB and larger requires a firmware upgrade. The latest BIOS can be downloaded here:

ftp://ftp.aslab.com/pub/bios/supermicro/h8ssliv2.img

To update the BIOS, do the following:

  1. Transfer the image into a floppy using 'dd' 
       dd if=h8ssliv2img of=/dev/fd0
  2. Boot the system from the floppy drive
  3. Run 'flash.bat' to update the BIOS
  4. After reboot, press F1 to enter the BIOS setup. Then set the following BIOS parameters: 
    Exit->Load Optimal Defaults

    Advanced
  CPU Configuration->MTRR Mapping [Discrete}
  Floppy Configuration->Floppy A [Disabled if necessary]
  PCIPnP->PCI IDE Busmaster [Enabled]
  S-SAT Configuration->S-ATA mode [MMIO]
  ACPI->Advanced ACPI Configuration->ACPI Version [ACPI v2.0]
  Cool n Quiet->Cool n Quiet [Disabled]
  System Health Monitor->System FAN Monitor->FS Mode [3-pin Svr]
Boot
  Boot Settings Configuration
    Quick Boot [Disabled]
    Quiet Boot [Disabled]
    PXE Rom Option [Enabled]