Xserve G5: Moving a PCI Hardware RAID card? Reset its configuration information

Anytime you move a PCI Hardware RAID card from one Xserve G5 server to another, you must reset the card back to JBOD ("Just a Bunch of Disks") mode by removing the configuration information with all hard drives disconnected from server. Otherwise, the server which you put the card in to may not recognize the drive configuration.
Follow these steps to remove previous configuration information from the PCI Hardware RAID card:
  1. Shutdown the Xserve G5 server that has the card installed.
  2. Disconnect all hard drives from the server.

    Warning: Data loss can occur if you don't disconnect all drives.

  3. Start up the (drive-less) server from the Xserve Server Software CD 1.
  4. In Terminal, execute the command: megaraid -destroyconfig
  5. Shutdown using this command: shutdown -h now
  6. Reconnect all of the hard drives.
  7. Start up normally. The PCI Hardware RAID card should read the metadata from the connected drives.

Published Date: Oct 7, 2016