HP Smart Array P400 Controller Issues

[twolittlebirds]

Hello, not sure if this is the correct place to post this so if it isn't, could a moderate move it?

Here is my issue.  I'm trying to convert one of my older desktops to be a striaght server. 

My setup:

Asus Stiker II Extreme motherboard
8 Gigs GSkill DDR3 1600
4 Seagate 1tb idrives n raid 0 using onboard raid

1 OCZ 512gb Agility 3 SSD
Nvidia GTX580 2gb video card

HP Smartarray P400 Controller Card
8 HP 300gb 10k SAS drives

I recenlty was given the P400 card along with 8 SAS drives.  They are all working (about two months old actually) when pulled for a complete system update by the company I work for. 

I placed the P400 card in the second PCI x8 slot on my motherboard.  It boots fine and everything until it gets to the "initializing" part.  When I have all 8 drives connected it gives me a 1789 drives not found or when restarted it says 1784 drives missing port/bay 1  10,11,12 .  IN fact all the drives say something along that line about missing port/bay 1 or 2 and than lists a number behind it.

I did some research and learned that its because they were removed out of a raid setup without being properly taken offline.  (Does that sound right?)

Anyways, I tried the HP solution of rebooting with the drives attached, than un attaching them when it shows the Press F1 to disable drives and continue or F2 to run a program or something along that line.

Sometimes when I switched the drives around it will boot and say "Drives have been placed in the wrong order" or something around that line and says to run ACU and than restart.

Problem is, it just shows a blinking cursor and doesn't proceed with the rest of the boot to desktop.

Same thing when I completely detach the cable except it says "No drives found" and than just sits there with a blinking cursor and does not continue to boot to desktop.

I have tried going into bios to change settings on the card but I cannot get to bios with the card installed as it boots the card before letting me into my motherboards bios.  I have to take the card out to get it to boot to bios.

When I do get into my bios I have tried to disable my onboard sata controllers (both of them!) and still would not get past the card's boot screen. 

The LED's all light up on the card and the battery that is attached to the cache all light up.  Not sure what I'm doing as I've really never have played around with SCSI/SAS or raid addon cards for that matter.

I'm pulling my hair out trying to get this to work.  I'm sure there is something small and stupid that I'm doing wrong that I'm not seeing and figured having anothers suggestion or opinon (like, is it really worth it, being an old card and all) I'm all ears!

The current bios on the card itself is 7.22.  I even downloaded the firmware update and burnt it to a cd but can't boot it because it never makes it past the P400 loading screen.  Just sits there, blinking cursor and all. 

If anything, I just want to make certain company information is deleted and just sell the things. 

[twolittlebirds]

I may end up buying an actual server motherboard and setup but was hoping that I could make do with what I have since it works...sorta.

Oh, and I can feel and see the hard drives powering up. So I know they are booting up atleast.