Hi Gary!
VMware VMs can emulate LSI HBAs based on the LSI53C1030 SCSI chip so we are
concerned about any bugs in Vista device drivers for the HBAs that use this
chip.
Could you, please, send me the PCI product ID of your HBA and the exact name
and version of the Vista MS device driver that is installed by default for
your adapter?
Thank you very much,
Dmitriy Budko,
VMware
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:bounce-267208-
xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Gary G. Little
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 7:56 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: Re:[ntdev] Vista “forgets” instructions …Update …
As it turns out, Vista was not “forgetting” anything. The culprit was a
driver issue, that may have only appeared under Vista, hence we blame the
sitting power that is on the throne.The actual culprit was a 3 year old LSI 21320-r HBA, and specifically the
Vista drivers for that card. When I installed Vista RC2 5744, I noted that
it came with drivers for the HBA so did not install the software on the
support CD or download new drivers from their tech support site. Doing
some
preliminary testing such as disc manager, formmating and general accessing
the SCSI drives I was testing,l everything looked good. Of course the
heaviest testing had been done under XP. Even under Vista the discs were
available. However … the first time I ran our diagnostic and testing
software, the OS started to complain about stack corruption.I began working on it, but no matter how I modified the code, it failed.
From a desk check viewpoint, there was nothing obvioulsy wrong with the
original form of the code. Eventually I called Phil and together we found
that a structure that was defined on the stack, with an address of around
0x2FXXXXX had two fields that never, ever changed, unless we did the
breakpoint trick described previously. Ok … so the next most obvious
answer was bad memory — so swap the DIMMs. No affect. After delving
into
it further, with no more insight, I posted the original description here.
Finally, I did the old dance, open the box and start removing things till
it
works. I popped the LSI card and bingo, no more stack corruption. I put
the
card back in and the stack was corrupted. The next step was to place a
call
to LSI tech support who took me through re-flashing the BIOS, but just as
we
were about to download new drivers from the web site … Seagate security
decided to call a fire drill. Really and truly they really really did.
>
> Once back in the office with a fresh HBA BIOS it was boot time, but still
> the same problem. The next 2 hours is a haze of moving the LSI card from
> slot to slot, pulling both the SiI 3132 and 3124 cards, swapping the 3124
> and LSI, all of this seeming to go on forever until I finaly had to leave.
> Before I left though, I managed to boot to the desktop and download a new
> driver from the LSI tech support site. It was the wrong one — BSOD
> during
> the install. At that point I uttered a few well worn explitives and
> stalked
> out of the cube.
>
> This morning, the komputer fairyes did not magically make things work like
> they do sometimes, so I booted to safe mode, found a set of drivers I had
> pulled for the LSI HBA back in August when this work started, installed
> them, and held my breath when I loaded my testing software. It worked. I
> turned on the power supply to the two drives, let them be discovered,
> tried
> the test again … and it worked. I booted out of safe mode back to normal
> mode and it worked.
>
> So, Vista did not forget a damn thing. Bad Vista drivers for an LSI 21320-
> R
> HBA turned memory into quantuum Swiss cheese.
>
> –
> The personal opinion of
> Gary G. Little