1) I'm assuming the 10-year-old equipment is fully functional ... this includes the memory on the RAID controller and all SCSI disks.
2) I've never touched Novell NetWare 5x
3) I have done several different Windows and Linux OS installs on new RAIDs after building a server from scratch.
4) I'm assuming you don't mind that the existing information on the disks is going to get wiped out when you build the new RAID.

These are all big assumptions as, I don't see a scenario where I'd create a NEW machine to run netware 5.1 with a 10-year-old RAID controller, only attempting to rescue a dead one.

Here's what I'm reading in your post:

A) I'm installing Novell Netware 5.1 on a server with disks controlled by an Adaptec AAA 131 UltraSCSI RAID card.

B) The Novell installer doesn't think there's a hard disk to put the installer files onto.

C) When I get to 'B' pointing the Novell installer to the floppy I've got the RAID drivers on doesn't help.

(I'm really sorry if A, B, and C are inaccurate assumptions, especially if it colors the posts that follow mine.)

Here's what I think will help:

Any operating system needs to recognize that there's a volume to install to.

With a single disk, a volume can be any size up to the entirety of the disk space you've got.

With a RAID array, you're telling the computer that a group of disks are going to have their total physical space* pooled in some way to create volumes.

(* assuming the member disks are all the same size)

So, if you've got 2 10 GB SCSI disks configured as one mirrored volume, it shows up as 10 GB of space.

If you've got 2 10 GB SCSI disks configured as a striped volume, it shows up as 20 GB of space.

If you've got 4 10 GB SCSI disks configured as a RAID 5, it shows up as 30 GB of space (not 40, ... that's another discussion.)

The point being: To get an OS working on a RAIDed volume, not only does the OS need to know how to talk to the disk controller, but, if the installer is going to be writing to the hard disks to install the OS, the volume you're installing to has to be there to be used as well.

i.e. you need -both- a usable volume -and- the drivers for the OS to talk to the controller and use the volume.

So ...

1) Prepare your driver disk. (First link in the 'web resources' section has the download page from Adaptec ... second link has the manual)

This is an assumption, but after you download the .exe files from Adaptec that are flagged as Novell drivers, you'll still need to -run- the .exe file on the windows PC you downloaded the drivers to. I'm pretty sure it's either a self-extracting zip or it's an application that will spit out a disk image onto a blank floppy.

I'm not on a windows box this evening to run it and see (sorry).

i.e., Don't just copy the .exe files to a floppy ... run the .exe to create the files or the floppy itself.

2) Prepare the RAID and configure the boot volume (the volume you're installing your OS onto)

Per the manual, use the 'ArrayConfig Boot Utility' to have the disk controller create your array. The ArrayConfig utility is under the 'downloads' tab in the Bios Updates and Other Downloads section. I believe it will spit out a bootable floppy when run that will help you set up the volume.

Boot your server with the ArrayConfig disk and create your boot volume ... make sure it's big enough for your netware installation.

Also ... I'm not familiar enough with netware to know if it'll recognize a volume bigger than 2GB (similar to FAT volumes on Windows from that era)

You're the Novell admin, I'll leave that bit to you. :)

Once RAIDed volume is created and initialized, THEN you can install Netware.

When the Netware installer prompts you for the disk controller drivers, point it to the floppy created by the driver utility from #1 above.

That should net you a clean install of Netware as if you installed onto blank disks.

Good Luck,

John

Links:

• http://www.elipsan.com/en-US/support/_eol/aaa_raid/AAA-131/
• http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/installation_guides/aaa130_ig.pdf

posted 3 months ago