How to get computer to boot from SAS card

[[Ion]]

Here's the situation I have: I have an IBM X3650 M2 computer; for those not familiar it's a dual-LGA1366 2U rackmount system. I'm trying to install an operating system on it--either Windows Server 2008 R2 or Linux Mint 17.2. The motherboard has a single onboard SAS port, and there's an LSI SAS3082E-R PCIe x4 2port SAS card installed. The motherboard will let me boot from any of the four drives hooked up to the onboard SAS port (at least the BIOS says so) but it will not boot from any of the drives (either RAIDed or not) on the LSI card. Meanwhile, my OS installers (2008R2 and Mint 17.2) will "see" and install to any disk on the LSI card, but not on the internal SAS controller.

I thus have the following issue: I can install the OS to a single disk or RAID array on the LSI SAS card, but can never then boot from it. Any clever ideas on how to try and make the computer boot from the SAS card? I think that the card itself is fine--it can create and destroy arrays of anywhere from 2 to 8 disks just fine, and the RAID arrays are perfectly functional from a Linux Mint live environment.
I've tried including the SAS controller drivers here (https://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5073138) in my Server 2008R2 installer but it still doesn't see the onboard SAS card.

 

[hat]

This may seem obvious, or not a solution you're after... but would it be possible to install the OS while it's on the SAS card, and then move the drive to the onboard controller?

 

[Solaris17]

hmm I just setup a RAID 0 array on an LSI 9260-8i with 8x 500GB SSDs. It was pretty straight forward from my end. though I did need to update the firmware on the unit to get the alarm to stop sounding and displaying errors that didnt exist. I simply created a disk group went to the configuration wizard manual mode created a new virtual disk added the drives to the array. built the array, initilized the array. then I went into the BIOS of the board. and set the LSI card to the primary boot drive.

is this type of procedure not working for you?>

 

[[Ion]]

This may seem obvious, or not a solution you're after... but would it be possible to install the OS while it's on the SAS card, and then move the drive to the onboard controller?

Huh. That's an idea

hmm I just setup a RAID 0 array on an LSI 9260-8i with 8x 500GB SSDs. It was pretty straight forward from my end. though I did need to update the firmware on the unit to get the alarm to stop sounding and displaying errors that didnt exist. I simply created a disk group went to the configuration wizard manual mode created a new virtual disk added the drives to the array. built the array, initilized the array. then I went into the BIOS of the board. and set the LSI card to the primary boot drive.

is this type of procedure not working for you?>

Seemingly the IBM BIOS doesn't have an option to boot from the SAS card like that. Otherwise, yes, that's what I'd do.

 

[newtekie1]

You might have to go into the LSI controller's OptionRom and select the boot device there, then set the boot device in the standard BIOS to the LSI controller.

 

[[Ion]]

Well, I'm thoroughly confused. After removing the tape drive and removing/reinstalling the SAS card (but not changing any BIOS options) I was able to do a fresh Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise install on one of the eight disks. It's up and running now and I have the other seven disks arranged as two RAID0 arrays. Bizarre.
Pretty neat watching all eight of the disk LEDs flash as updates are installed and the drives are formatting