BL60p USB DVD Issues...

[Ian Vaughan]

Howdy,
I have now tried 3 different USB DVD drives in order to install HP-UX 11.23 on a BL60p blade server.
The Freecom DVD-RW got as far as booting the Ignite Kernel and then panic. This is the same behaviour as exhibited on another BL60p post.

The Phillips DVD-R hangs on the "install" command.

The HP (!) DVD-ROM doesn't show up at all in the EFI's map of devices.

Any help most welcome. F/W is 1.70 (can't update it - no DVD) and an ignite server is not an option at the moment.

And yes it is plugged into the correct (top) USB socket.

Cheers
Ian

[William E Howard]

Unfortunitally, it is entirely possible this will not work. HP's USB drivers (USB Mass Storage Driver IIRC) in HPUX are very flakey, and while they are supposed to support USB DVD drives, quite often they don't work. 11.31 is supposed to have better USB drivers, but I havn't had a chance to try it out yet.

You may end up having to use an existing server as your ignite server and deploy to the bl60 that way.

Have you tried going thru the iLO interface and using the virtual CD/DVD option there?

[Ian Vaughan]

Hello,
The virtual media is only available for the C-class IA64 blade (the bl860c?).

It looks like Ignite will work - but this means you need an available HP-UX server to deploy from. Which would be OK if you got a free rx server with the BL60p but you don't.

Hrrrummph

[William E Howard]

Ahh, you're right on that, sorry. Saw the Advanced on the iLO and didn't remember that Integrity's iLO Advanced isn't like the Proliant version.

It does say that the BL60p's iLO should have a Remote Firmware Update though, per http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/98327-0-0-0-121.html If you cannot get the DVD drives to work as-is, the only option I can think of is that.

Do you know the P/N for the HP DVD-Rom you're using? The BL60p Quickspecs list a specific DVD system to use.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12371_na/12371_na.html

It lists the USB Multibay Cradle, and beneath there are 3 different DVD drives.

Like I said before, HP has had problems with USB on HP/UX, but these should work if HP has certified 'em for the BL60p.

[Ian Vaughan]

Ah yes -

forgot to say that the USB devices (multibay etc) in the quickspecs are now unobtainable as they are obsolete.

We have asked HP if the USB devices on the BL860c's quickspecs (multibay 2) are compatible and we are waiting for an answer.

Ho hum.