A P P E N D I X  D

SCSI BIOS Configuration Utility

Using the Fusion-MPT SCSI BIOS Configuration Utility, you can change the default configuration of your SCSI host adapters. You may decide to alter these default values if there is a conflict between device settings or to optimize system performance.


D.1 Starting the SCSI BIOS Configuration Utility

The version number of the SCSI BIOS displays in a banner on your monitor during boot. If the utility is available, the following message also appears:

Press Ctrl-C to start LSI Logic Configuration Utility.

This message remains on your screen for about five seconds, allowing you to start the utility. If you press Ctrl-C, the message changes to the following:

Please wait, invoking LSI Logic Configuration Utility...

After a brief pause, your monitor displays the main menu of the Fusion-MPT PCI SCSI BIOS Configuration Utility.

The following messages might appear during the boot process:


TABLE D-1 Boot Process Messages

Message

Description

Adapter removed from boot order

Appears when an adapter is removed from the system or relocated behind a PCI bridge.

Persistent settings INVALID, defaults saved

Appears if none of the information in the NVRAM is valid.




Note - The SCSI BIOS Configuration Utility is a powerful tool. If, while using it, you disable all of your controllers, pressing Ctrl-A (or Ctrl-E on version 5.00 or later) after memory initialization during reboot allows you to re-enable and reconfigure.





Note - Not all devices detected by the Configuration Utility can be controlled by the BIOS. Devices such as tape drives and scanners require that a device driver specific to that peripheral be loaded. The SCSI BIOS Configuration Utility does allow parameters to be modified for these devices.




D.2 Using the Configuration Utility

All SCSI BIOS Configuration Utility screens are partitioned into fixed areas.


TABLE D-2 Utility Screen Areas

Area

Description

Header

Provides static information text, which is typically the product title and version.

Menu

Provides the current main area menu, if applicable. This area includes a cursor for menu item selection.

Main

For presenting data. Includes a cursor for item selection, horizontal scrolling and vertical scrolling.

Footer

Provides general help information.


D.2.1 User Input

Throughout the GUI, selections that are not permissible are grayed out.

Following are user input methods available from the GUI:


TABLE D-3 User Input Methods

User Input

Description

F2 = Menu

Sets cursor context to the menu selection area. Select a menu item and press Enter.

Arrow Keys = Select Item

Home/End = Select Item

Up, down, left, right movement to position the cursor.

+/- = Change [Item]

Items with values in [ ] brackets are modifiable. Numeric keypad plus symbol (+) and numeric keypad minus symbol (-) update a modifiable field to its next relative value.

Esc = Abort/Exit

Escape aborts the current context operation and/or exits the current screen. User confirmation is solicited as required.

Enter = Execute <Item>

Items with values in < > brackets are executable. Press Enter to execute the field's associated function.


D.2.2 Main Menu

When you invoke the Fusion-MPT SCSI BIOS Configuration Utility, the main menu displays a scrolling list of up to 256 LSI Logic PCI to SCSI host adapters in the system and information about each of them.

Use the arrow keys to select an adapter, then press Enter to view and modify the selected adapter's properties (and to gain access to the attached devices). You can only access adapters with LSI Logic Control enabled. After selecting an adapter and pressing Enter, the adapter's SCSI bus is scanned and the Adapter Properties screen appears.

The main menu includes the following two selections:

To execute an item, select it and press Enter.

Following are the options on the Main menu.


TABLE D-4 Main Menu

Option

Description

Adapter

Indicates the specific family of LSI Logic Host Adapters.

PCI Bus

Indicates the PCI Bus number (range 0x00 - 0xFF, 0-255 decimal) assigned by the system BIOS to an adapter.

Dev/Func

Indicates the PCI Device/Function assigned by the system BIOS to an adapter.

An 8-bit value mapped as follows:

Bit # 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Bits 2-0: Function (range 0 - 7)

Bits 7-3: Device (range 0x00 - 0x1F, 0 - 31 decimal).

Port Number

Indicates the I/O Port Number that communicates with an adapter. The system BIOS assigns this number.

IRQ

Indicates the Interrupt Request Line used by an adapter. The system BIOS assigns this value.

NVM

Indicates whether an adapter has non-volatile memory (NVM) associated with it. An adapter's configuration is stored in its associated NVM.

Boot Order

Indicates the relative boot order (0 to 3) of an adapter. The Fusion-MPT SCSI BIOS traverses up to four adapters in the specified order in search of bootable media. Access the "Boot Adapter List" Menu to modify this item.

LSI Logic Control

Indicates whether an adapter is eligible for LSI Logic software control or is reserved for control by non-LSI Logic software.

RAID Status

A status indicates the existence of a RAID array on an adapter and what state its in. "--" indicates no RAID array found on adapter.

Global Properties

Indicates global properties that are not associated with a specific adapter or device.


D.2.3 Boot Adapter List

The adapter boot order specifies the order in which adapters will boot when more than one operating-system adapter is in a system.

Up to four of the total adapters in a system may be selected as bootable. To add an adapter to the boot list, press Insert while on the Boot Adapter List. This puts the cursor on the adapter select list. Use the arrow keys to select the desired adapter and press Enter to add it to the end of the Boot Adapter List.

To remove an adapter from the boot list, press Delete while the cursor is on the desired adapter in the Boot Adapter List.

Following are the options on the List menu.


TABLE D-5 List Menu

Option

Description

Adapter

Indicates the specific family of LSI Logic Host Bus Adapters.

PCI Bus

Indicates the PCI Bus number (range 0x00 - 0xFF, 0-255 decimal) assigned by the system BIOS to an adapter.

Dev/Func

Indicates the PCI Device/Function assigned by the System BIOS to an adapter. An 8-bit value mapped as follows:

Bit # 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Bits 2-0: Function (range 0 - 7)

Bits 7-3: Device (range 0x00 - 0x1F, 0 - 31 decimal).

Boot Order

Specifies the relative boot order (0 to 3) of an adapter.

Minus symbol (-) decreases an adapter's relative boot order. Plus symbol (+) increases an adapter's relative boot order.

Current Status

Indicates whether an adapter in the boot list was enabled during the most recent boot. Disabled adapters and their attached devices are ignored by the Fusion-MPT PCI SCSI BIOS although they are still visible to the Configuration Utility.

Next Boot

Specifies whether to enable an adapter upon the next boot. The Fusion-MPT SCSI BIOS ignores disabled adapters and their attached devices although they are still visible to the Configuration Utility.


D.2.4 Global Properties

The Global Properties option on the main menu allows you to set display and video modes, as well as a pause if an alert message has been displayed.

Following are the options on the Global Properties menu.


TABLE D-6 Global Properties

Option

Description

Pause When Boot Alert Displayed

Specifies whether to pause for user acknowledgement after displaying an alert message during boot. The Boot Alert setting can be either No or Yes.

To continue after displaying a message, specify No. To wait for any key after displaying a message, specify Yes.

Boot Information Display Mode

Specifies the information display mode of the BIOS during boot. It controls how much information about adapters and devices are displayed during boot. The Display Mode setting can be either Terse or Verbose.

To display minimum information, specify Terse mode. To display detailed information, specify Verbose mode.

Negotiate with devices

Sets the default value for synchronous and wide negotiations with specified devices. Options are: All, None or Supported.

Video Mode

Specifies the default video mode for the Configuration Utility. The Video Mode setting can be either Color or Monochrome. The monochrome setting enhances readability on a monochrome monitor.

Support Interrupt

Allows the ability to prevent a hook on INT40, if required.

Disable Integrated RAID

Tells the firmware not to perform a bus scan searching for RAID member devices. It also disables configuration of RAID arrays in the BIOS.

<Restore Defaults>

Press Enter to obtain default settings.


D.2.5 Adapter Properties

The Adapter Properties menu allows you to view and modify adapter settings. It also provides access to an adapter's device settings.

Following are the options on the Adapter Properties menu.


TABLE D-7 Adapter Properties

Option

Description

<Device Properties>

To view and modify device properties, press Enter.

<RAID Properties>

To view, create/delete or configure RAID arrays, press Enter.

<Synchronize Whole Mirror>

Copies the data from the primary copy of the mirrored array to the secondary copy.

Host SCSI ID

Indicates the SCSI identifier of an adapter [0-7] or [0-15]. It is recommended that this field be set to the highest priority SCSI identifier, which is 7.

Note: 8-bit SCSI devices cannot see identifiers greater than 7.

SCSI Bus Scan Order

Indicates the order in which to scan SCSI identifiers on an adapter. Changing this item will affect drive letter assignment(s) if more than one device is attached to an adapter.

Note: Changing this item may conflict with an operating system that automatically assigns drive order.

Removable Media Support

Specifies the removable media support option for an adapter. Three settings are allowed:

None indicates no removable media support whether the drive is selected as first (BBS) or is first in the scan order (non-BBS).

Boot Drive Only provides removable media support for a removable hard drive if it is first in the scan order.

With Media Installed provides removable media regardless of the drive ordering.

CHS Mapping

Defines how the Cylinder Head Sector values are mapped onto a disk without pre-existing partition information. CHS Mapping includes two settings:

SCSI Plug and Play Mapping (default value) automatically determines the most efficient and compatible mapping.

Alternate CHS Mapping utilizes an alternate, possibly less efficient mapping that may be required if a device is moved between adapters from different vendors.

Note: Neither of these options has any effect after a disk has been partitioned using the FDISK command. To change the CHS Mapping on a partitioned disk, use the FDISK command to delete all partitions. Then reboot the system to clear memory or the old partitioning data will be reused, thus nullifying the previous operation.

CAUTION: Use care to ensure that the correct disk is the target of an FDISK command.

Spinup Delay (Secs)

Indicates the number of seconds to wait between spinups of devices attached to an adapter. Staggered spinups will balance the total electrical-current load on the system during boot. The default value is 2 seconds with options between 1 and 10 seconds.

Secondary Cluster Server

Indicates whether an adapter has one or more devices attached that are shared with one or more other adapters, and therefore, the Fusion-MPT PCI SCSI BIOS should avoid SCSI Bus resets as much as possible.

Allows you to enable an adapter to join a cluster of adapters without doing any SCSI bus resets. The default value is No.

Termination Control

This field indicates whether an adapter has automatic termination control, and if so, its current status. Two settings are available:

Auto: The adapter automatically determines whether it should enable or disable its termination.

Off: Termination at the adapter is off. The devices at the ends of the SCSI bus must terminate the bus.

Note: If Auto is gray, it means that termination is automatic, not programmable.

Restore Defaults

To obtain default settings, press Enter.


D.2.6 Device Properties

The Device Properties screen provides viewing and updating of individual device settings for an adapter.

Changing a setting for the host device (for example, SCSI ID 7) changes the setting for all devices.

Following are the options on the Device Properties screen.


TABLE D-8 Device Properties

Option

Description

SCSI ID

Indicates the device's SCSI Identifier.

Device Identifier

Indicates the ASCII device identifier string extracted from the device's Inquiry Data.

Sync Rate

Indicates the maximum synchronous data transfer rate, in mega transfers per second.

Mega Transfers/ Data Data Synchronous

Second Width= 8 Width=16 Period nsec

Mbytes/s Mbytes/s

--------------- -------- -------- -----------

0=Async 0=Async 0=Async 0=Async

5 5 10 200

10 10 20 100

20 20 40 50

40 40 80 25

Data Width

Indicates the maximum data width in bits.

Scan ID

Indicates whether to scan for this SCSI identifier at boot time. This item can be used to ignore a device and to decrease boot time by disabling the inquiry of unused SCSI identifiers.

Set this option to No if there is a device that you do not want to be available to the system. Also, on a bus with only a few devices attached, the user can speed up boot time by changing this setting to No for all unused SCSI IDs.

Scan LUNs > 0

Indicates whether to scan for LUNs greater than zero for a device. LUN zero is always queried. Use this option if a multi-LUN device responds to unoccupied LUNs or to reduce the visibility of a multi-LUN device to LUN zero only.

Set this option to No if you have problems with a device that responds to all LUNs whether they are occupied or not. If a SCSI device with multiple LUNs exists on your system but you do not want all of those LUNs to be available to the system, set this option to No to limit the scan to LUN 0 only.

Disconnect

Indicates whether to allow a device to disconnect during SCSI operations. Some (mostly newer) devices run faster with disconnect enabled, while some (mostly older) devices run faster with disconnect disabled.

SCSI Timeout

Indicates the maximum amount of time [0 to 9999] in seconds to wait for a SCSI operation to complete.

Since timeouts provide a safeguard that allows the system to recover if an operation fails, it is recommended to use a value greater than zero. A value of zero allows unlimited time for an operation to complete and could result in the system hanging (waiting forever) if an operation fails.

Press Enter, type in a value and then press Enter again to specify a new timeout value.

Queue Tags

Indicates whether to allow the use of queue tags for a device. Currently the BIOS does not use queue tags. This item specifies queue-tag control to higher-level device drivers.

Boot Choice

Indicates whether this device may possibly be selected as the boot device. This option is only applicable to devices attached to adapter number zero (in the boot list) on non-BBS systems. It provides primitive BBS flexibility to non-BBS systems.

Restore Defaults

Press Enter to obtain default settings.


D.2.7 RAID Properties

The RAID Properties screen initially displays listing all possible SCSI IDs on the Adapter SCSI Channel. This allows the user to select disks on this channel to be members of a mirrored array. Mirroring provides protection against data loss by storing two copies of the data on separate disks.

Following are the options on the RAID Properties screen.


TABLE D-9 RAID Properties

Option

Description

Array

There are two different mirrored configurations: Integrated Mirroring (IM) is a simple sector-to-sector physical mirror of one drive to another drive. This type has two members (not including hot spare).

RAID 1E is the second type and has a striped layout with each stripe unit having a secondary (or alternate) copy stored on a different disk. This type is used when there are more than two active members in RAID array.

SCSI ID

The SCSI ID that the operating system or application addresses the array.

Size (MB)

The size of the array.

Array Disk?

The user selects a minimum of two disks in this column. A maximum of six disks can be selected; five is the maximum if a hot spare has been selected.

Hot Spare

The user can optionally select a single hot spare. The hot spare disk provides additional protection by automatically replacing an array member when it fails.

Status

Lists the status of each physical disk in the array.

Predict Failure

Indicates whether SMART has determined that the disk will fail in the near future.

Size

Shows the physical size of the disk when not an array member. When part of an array, it shows the size used for the array. The latter will be smaller because when the array is created the size is rounded down to factor in disk-size variances within the same disk class.

Putting existing Data into a RAID array.

To mirror a disk containing existing data, select the disk with data to be retained first and it will become the primary copy of an integrated-mirrored array. When the first disk is selected, the BIOS configuration utility prompts you to either Keep Data or Erase Disk. Press F3 to keep data. Only IM arrays can be created to keep previous data.

Saving Configuration or Exiting the RAID Properties Screen

If finished with this screen, press ESC. If changes were made, you are prompted to save or discard the configuration. Saving the configuration will create the array.

Diagnostics Mode

Before the array is created, press F4 to display diagnostic codes under the Size column for each device on the system. These codes indicate why the configuration utility has disabled selection of some disks. A disk may be disabled for the following reasons:

1 - Problem with reading disk serial number

2 - Disk does not support SMART

3 - Unused

4 - Disk does not support wide data, synchronous mode or queue tagging

5 - User disabled disconnects or queue tags for device (Device Properties)

6 - Unused

7 - Disk not big enough to mirror primary disk

8 - Unused

9 - Unused

10- Disk does not have 512 byte sector size

11- Incorrect device type

12- Hot Spare selection not big enough to be used as an array disk

13- Maximum disks already specified or maximum array size would be exceeded


After an array has been created you can perform the following:


TABLE D-10 Post-Array Creation Commands

<Delete Array>

Deletes the array currently displayed in the RAID Properties screen.

<Add/Delete Hot Spare>

Allows adding a hot spare to an existing volume as long as no hot spares are defined. Also allows deleting a hot spare and leaving the array otherwise operational.

<Next Array>

Enabled for illegal configuration situations in which there is more than one array on this physical adapter. The RAID Properties screen allows display of one array at a time. This option allows you to display and operate on the next array found.

<Activate Array>

If there are two arrays on a physical adapter, this option allows you select which array should be active. Only one array can be active at a time per physical adapter. Activating an array also causes all the remaining arrays found on the physical adapter to be deactivated.



D.3 Quitting the SCSI BIOS Configuration Utility

Since some changes only take effect after your system reboots, it is important that you exit this configuration utility properly. To exit, press Esc and respond to the verification prompts.



Note - If you reboot the system without properly exiting from this utility, some changes may not take effect.