Battery Cache Issues with HP ML350 and SCCM OSD

Our image is deployed using SCCM’s OSD, it is a wim image of Windows 2003 SP2 R2, we
inject the drivers at build time into the build.

Without the battery, we can rebuild over and over with no issue, even if we blow away the
array.

However if we plug the battery in, and delete the array and then recreate it as a
raid 1+0, then attempt to deploy the build again we get the error below.

We have tested on multiple servers and using different batteries..

USB

If you boot WINPE from a USB device, there is a built-in SCCM step that
copies WinPE to the local hard drive and then restarts the server using the
WinPE that was loaded on the HD.

This is deploying winpe2.0/vista pe boot loaders and mbr to the HD
(NOTE: Windows 2003 has a different boot loader, mbr to vista/win7/win2008).

Then it deploys the OS to the HD, and must reconfigure the boot loader,
mbr etc for the specific OS you are deploying. (if this is anything older than
Win2008 it must change the boot loader mbr etc).
It looks to me like the process of loading Winpe to HD then deploying OS is
causing the issue. Possibly something to do with the batter cache not flushing
correctly or controller not returning correct information to the PE
environment.

DVD

For a DVD build winpe will boot from the DVD then the OS will be
deployed straight to c:\, the step of copying winpe to the local hard drive
does not occur.

I preformed a lot of tests myself before escalating this issue to HP, in
an attempt to narrow down the issue, the results are below.

 Test Results G6 Cache issue USB build SCCM, HP Server has latest firmware

Battery Cache	Rebuild Array	OS Deployed	Result	Comments
Test1         yes	yes	w2k3	Fail
Test2         no	yes	w2k3	Success
Test3         yes	no	w2k3	Success	Had existing build on it from test2, then server was powered off and cache plugged in.
Test4         yes	yes	w2k3	Fail
Test5         yes	no	w2k3	Success2	try rebuild after previous failure, don’t rebuild array
Test6         yes	yes	w2k3	Fail
Test7         yes	yes	win2008	Success	Deploying windows 2008 works fine, with same build using sccm usb build.

UPDATE1:

 The HP Level 3 believe they have identified a potential cause for the problem. A beta firmware is being written and tested to see if it resolves the problem. I expect further news next week some time.

 Update2:

HP have fixed the issue in their new version of firmware