Fire X2250 / Hard disks not detected in AHCI mode
807557May 8 2010 — edited Aug 2 2010we have two Sun Fire X2250 servers. one i have completely setup already with an OS, using AHCI mode for the hard disks in the BIOS.
on the second server, i setup the disks the same way using AHCI. the system booted and detected all of the disks, and i installed an OS. now, after rebooting, the disks are not detected; the BIOS is stuck on 'detecting SATA channel 0'. if i remove the drive on SATA0, then the BIOS gets stuck on 'detecting SATA channel 1'. the BIOS isn't frozen, because i have left it waiting for several minutes, then pushed F2 and i saw it changed to "Entering setup..." i can never get to setup, though, because the disks are never detected. if i unplug both HDD's, then i can get into BIOS setup. i have tried loading failsafe as well as optimal defaults. this resets it back to IDE mode, and the disks are detected fine but, as soon as i change to AHCI mode, the BIOS can't detect the disks. again, the other X2250 is working just fine with AHCI. these servers are practically brand-new (have been sitting in storage for some time) and this is the first time they have been configured.
i also tried removing power from the server for at least 2 minutes, and i also took out the battery for well over 30+ seconds. the strange thing is, that doesn't seem to have cleared the CMOS because, as soon as the BIOS comes up, it is still stuck 'detecting SATA channel 0' whereas i would have expected it to be reset to IDE mode and detect the disk.
what's happened?