put the controller + drive back into the gentoo server seems it loads one more module:
# dmesg | grep mega [ 2.119694] megasas: 06.700.06.00-rc1 Sat. Aug. 31 17:00:00 PDT 2013 [ 2.119708] megasas: 0x1000:0x0073:0x1734:0x1177: bus 2:slot 0:func 0 [ 2.119821] megasas: FW now in Ready state [ 2.119838] megaraid_sas 0000:02:00.0: irq 45 for MSI/MSI-X [ 2.119849] megaraid_sas 0000:02:00.0: [scsi6]: FW supports<0> MSIX vector,Online CPUs: <4>,Current MSIX <1> [ 2.147598] megasas_init_mfi: fw_support_ieee=67108864 [ 2.147599] megasas: INIT adapter done [ 2.237574] megaraid_sas 0000:02:00.0: Controller type: iMR and no FW init problem message. So maybe I have to force loading the "megasas" module under debian or so. For now we run amanda on the gentoo box (as years before) to get backups. The server is ~100 miles away from me and the guy who serves as my "remote hands" isn't employed there ... ;-) ... so swapping hardware again will take some time. Maybe someone on the list with similar hardware could compare "dmesg" ? thanks, Stefan
