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Have an IBM System x3500 M3 that refuses to boot from the IBM branded LSI SAS card if any SATA drive is also connected to the mainboard. The system restarts itself over and over. No error messages. Just sits there with a blinking cursor until it restarts, and the process repeats.

Tried changing the boot order, resetting the BIOS to defaults, and nothing helps. Tried different SATA drive models from IBM/Hitachi and Seagate, blank/without operating systems, and the same thing happens. If we add a SATA drive with an OS, for example Linux, it boots off the SATA drive and does not boot off the SAS. (Want it to boot off the SAS.)

Remove the SATA drive(s) and the SAS RAID1 array boots fine. The SAS drive array is running VMWare ESXi.

Any suggestions?

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After talking with IBM, we found we had an unsupported configuration. The only drives supported to hang directly off the mainboard are a CD/DVD drive and a tape drive.

IBM recommended we buy an IBM ServeRAID-BR10IL SAS/SATA Controller Card for the SATA drives and make sure the drives are setup within a hot-swap cage (which didn't come with the server) - and that's what we're doing.

Then the BIOS should let us select which controller to boot from.

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can u tell me where i can ask same question to IBM (or u can give me IBM email?) but my server is IBM series X 3200 M3, i got same problem when try attach sata drive (500gb) to our system it cannot boot from SAS hardrive. Already change all bios configuration same problem ...thanks for advice –  user104885 Dec 22 '11 at 10:15
We went through the IBM technical sales rep at the distributor we bought the server from. He wasn't really supposed to give us support like this but went above and beyond to help out, post-sale. You could try asking for an IBM rep at the company you bought the server from, or google "IBM X series support". HTH. –  ane Jan 4 '12 at 18:08

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