H162302:  SERVERAID II ADAPTER SHIPS WITH HARD DRIVE FLASH DISKETT   E


 TEXT:

 Recent IBM product testing has shown that some IBM 4.5 GB and
 9.1 GB Hard Drives might not perform to IBM quality standards
 due to possible Read Errors.

 A degradation in performance may be observed if these drives
 are attached to the ServeRAID II adapter due to Read errors at
 the drives that the adapter detects and subsequently will direct
 reads to the other drives and rebuild the data on the remaining
 drives in a Logical RAID 1, or 5 array.
 Read errors may be experienced in Logical Raid 0 arrays.

 The ServeRAID II Adapter (when purchased as a option) ships with
 a hard disk drive update utility package that contains a Update
 Utility Diskette and a 5 page instruction booklet. The Update
 Utility is only used to flash the microcode on the following
 drives that may be attached to the ServeRAID adapter:

 4.5 GB 80-Pin SCSI Hard Disk Drive (FRU p/n76H5817)
 4.5 GB 80-Pin SCSI Hard Disk Drive (FRU p/n01K6675)
 9.1 GB 80-Pin SCSI Hard Disk Drive (FRU p/n76H5818)
 9.1 GB 80-Pin SCSI Hard Disk Drive (FRU p/n01K6679)
 4.5 GB 68-Pin SCSI Hard Disk Drive (FRU p/n76H2697)
 4.5 GB 68-Pin SCSI Hard Disk Drive (FRU p/n93G2970)
 9.1 GB 68-Pin SCSI Hard Disk Drive (FRU p/n76H2698)
 9.1 GB 68-Pin SCSI Hard Disk Drive (FRU p/n93G2972)
 4.5 GB 50-Pin SCSI Hard Disk Drive (FRU p/n76H2695)
 9.1 GB 50-Pin SCSI Hard Disk Drive (FRU p/n76H2696)

 The Utility update diskette is bootable. Upon boot, it will
 load drivers for the ServeRAID II adapter and search for the
 presence of any of the above listed drives attached to the
 SCSI bus. Once found, the drive(s) Firmware will be flashed
 to a new microcode level (level 63) which fixes read error
 issues.

 All currently manufactured drives have been flashed to Firmware
 level 63.

 NOTE: See the readme.txt file on the Utility update diskette for
 instructions on use of the Utility as well as procedures
 required to verify the microcode on the listed drives.

 The Update utility is located on the IBM Website listed as:
 "4.51/9.1 GB ServeRAID II hard disk drive update utility
  version 1.00". The URL is:

     http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/files.html

   - Search on 9.1 GB.
   - Locate the file by the above description.
   - Download the file. It is a self extracting executable file
     that creates a diskette.

 NOTE: See ECA016 for flashing these drives attached to other
 SCSI controllers.

 Date: December 30, 1997