SCSI/SATA RAID Controller Replacement

Overview

Have anyone run into a situation where the SCSI/SATA RAID controller stopped functioning and the only replacement is a different make or model? This paper shows how the authors recovered from this situation. They ran into this on a rather critical system since it was a Microsoft Windows 2003 Server running Microsoft Exchange 2003 and hosting a web site through IIS. Booting the system showed no controller in the POST messages and therefore no hard drives to boot from. The authors only reached certainty that the controller was the root of the problem when they put a new one into the system and attached the hot-plug drive cage to it. Immediately, they saw the boot process identify the drives and create a logical disk.