Microsoft iSCSI initiator and Dell Openmanage Array Manager

[adamhearn]

Apologies for posting in this forum but I'm after some advice if anyone can help and wasn't sure were best to locate my request.

We use Microsoft's iSCSI initiator (V2.02) against Starwind 3.1.4 mainly for virtual DVD drives. Some machines that need access to the ISO images are servers and have Dell's Openmanage array management drivers installed supporting hardware RAID as supplied by Dell.

It is these systems where there's an issue - which is clearly a contention between Dell, it's drivers, Windows storage and Microsoft's iSCSI initiator... The iSCSI initiator can log on to the iSCSI targets and all seems well but mostly no drive appear [s in Windows Explorer] though occasionaly a drive appears but is marked as 'invalid' (question mark).

Doe anyone have any advice on how to get the iSCSI initiator to mount drives on these systems? Only workaround we use thus far is to copy the ISO to the server and mount it using a free util [from Microsoft] that mounts an ISO image as a virtual CD. The util from Microsoft is good in that it doesn't need installation prior to usage.

[anton (staff)]

Try using our StarPort as iSCSI initiator or as local DVD-ROM emulator from ISO image. It could be used in both this ways.

Apologies for posting in this forum but I'm after some advice if anyone can help and wasn't sure were best to locate my request.

We use Microsoft's iSCSI initiator (V2.02) against Starwind 3.1.4 mainly for virtual DVD drives. Some machines that need access to the ISO images are servers and have Dell's Openmanage array management drivers installed supporting hardware RAID as supplied by Dell.

It is these systems where there's an issue - which is clearly a contention between Dell, it's drivers, Windows storage and Microsoft's iSCSI initiator... The iSCSI initiator can log on to the iSCSI targets and all seems well but mostly no drive appear [s in Windows Explorer] though occasionaly a drive appears but is marked as 'invalid' (question mark).

Doe anyone have any advice on how to get the iSCSI initiator to mount drives on these systems? Only workaround we use thus far is to copy the ISO to the server and mount it using a free util [from Microsoft] that mounts an ISO image as a virtual CD. The util from Microsoft is good in that it doesn't need installation prior to usage.

[adamhearn]

Tried that without much success I'm afraid...

Downloaded/installed Starport eval version.
Installation presented no errors however when I run up Starport I get an error:
"Starport driver is not available"
Pressing OK to that message box I get:
"Failed to create empty document"

The Starport log contains:
8/7 0:45:59 980 ntsrv: StarPort Service v3.0.4 (Build 20060702, Win32)
8/7 0:45:59 bb8 Reactivator:CoCreateInstance failed. Error 0x80070424

The starport Windows Service is running.
When I look at the non plug and play devices, I can see an entry for StarEther but whilst the driver says it's running (Driver tab), the General tab shows the following:
This device is not present, is not working properly, or does not have all its drivers installed. (Code 24)

The platform I'm trying it on is a Windows 2000 Server running SP4 with rollup.

Hope the above is enough information!

Edit: I should have also mentioned that when I install[ed] the product there was a 'long' pause at the end (presumably it's installing the devices... which maybe doesn't go to plan?!?!).

[Val (staff)]

Apologies for posting in this forum but I'm after some advice if anyone can help and wasn't sure were best to locate my request.

We use Microsoft's iSCSI initiator (V2.02) against Starwind 3.1.4 mainly for virtual DVD drives. Some machines that need access to the ISO images are servers and have Dell's Openmanage array management drivers installed supporting hardware RAID as supplied by Dell.

It is these systems where there's an issue - which is clearly a contention between Dell, it's drivers, Windows storage and Microsoft's iSCSI initiator... The iSCSI initiator can log on to the iSCSI targets and all seems well but mostly no drive appear [s in Windows Explorer] though occasionaly a drive appears but is marked as 'invalid' (question mark).

Doe anyone have any advice on how to get the iSCSI initiator to mount drives on these systems? Only workaround we use thus far is to copy the ISO to the server and mount it using a free util [from Microsoft] that mounts an ISO image as a virtual CD. The util from Microsoft is good in that it doesn't need installation prior to usage.

Hi,
Have you seen at the StarWind Service's log file (StarWind\logs sub-directory). The problems should be reported there.
You could send the log file to us by e-mail and we'll analyze it for errors.

The MS iSCSI initiator v2.02 is known as working well with StarWind. There may be some configuration issues of Dell machines.
The Event Log could include some error messages explaining the invalid state of the devices. Could you check it?

According to the second issue with StarPort under Win2000 - we'll try to reproduce the problem in our test-labs and will fix it is confirmed.
Thank you for the feedback.

[adamhearn]

Hi,
Have you seen at the StarWind Service's log file (StarWind\logs sub-directory). The problems should be reported there.
You could send the log file to us by e-mail and we'll analyze it for errors.

Hi Valery, The problem is definitely *not* Starwind - it's almost definitely (99.999999% certain) to be the configuration of the machine with regards to Dell hardware/drivers.

The MS iSCSI initiator v2.02 is known as working well with StarWind.

Indeed it is, we use Starwind Professional Server and MS iSCSI initiator without any issues from many machines. Apologies if I gave any impresssion that Starwind wasn't working as expected!

[Val (staff)]

Hi,
Have you seen at the StarWind Service's log file (StarWind\logs sub-directory). The problems should be reported there.
You could send the log file to us by e-mail and we'll analyze it for errors.

Hi Valery, The problem is definitely *not* Starwind - it's almost definitely (99.999999% certain) to be the configuration of the machine with regards to Dell hardware/drivers.

The MS iSCSI initiator v2.02 is known as working well with StarWind.

Indeed it is, we use Starwind Professional Server and MS iSCSI initiator without any issues from many machines. Apologies if I gave any impresssion that Starwind wasn't working as expected!

You need not apologize for anything.
We would like to know what the problem is to be able to help other custemers if they experience it.
So please notify us if you find what is to blame in the case.

Thank you.