Trouble with using DVD drive in Blade enclosure

[Steven Whitmore]

I have a blade enclosure system where I can connect the DVD drive to the blades with OA or via the insight display, but I can't access the drive. For example, I am running Windows 2003 server on one blade and I attach the DVD drive to it via OA, and everything looks fine, except I cannot read the disk that is in the drive. This is true for all the blades in the enclosure. I have tried reseating everything in the enclosure and nothing helps. At one point the drive did start to work for a few minutes, but then the problem came back. Any one have any ideas? Thanks.

[Adrian Clint]

Steve,

1. It must be a self powered DVD drive. If it tries to pull the power from the USB port then it may not work. Which is what you are seeing.

2. What OA firmware are you using..?

3. What happens if you take the DVD drive and media and plug it in the dongle on the front of the blade. does it work then?

[Steven Whitmore]

The DVD drive is the internal drive option, mounted in the enclosure, not a USB drive. I've updated the firmware for both the OA and iLO. Still can't read any disks in the drive from any of the blades. I'm thinking this may be a hardware problem at this point? I've reseated everything in the enclosure including the DVD drive already.

[Steven Whitmore]

Sorry for all the questions, but I am new to HP Blade Enclosure management. The point at which the drive worked briefly was just after doing the firmware updates for the OA and iLO per the HP Hardware Support Center. At that point we thought the problem was fixed and we went home for the night. When we came back to the machine the next morning, we couldn't read disks in the drive again. Does a blade OS need to be power-on-reset after the drive is connected for it to fully connect to the drive? We didn't do that after the firmware update, we were immediately able to browse a disk in the drive on Windows 2003 Server running on blade 1.

[Adrian Clint]

Yes I think you could have a faulty DVD drive. It shouldn't need a reboot to connect it.

Do you have a self powered USB drive?
If so...
Try removing the Internal DVD... wait 5 mins
Connect the external drive to the USB port on the front USB connector of the onboard administrator.
Wait 5 mins.
See if you can use the external one.
If that works your internal one is dicky.

[Steven Whitmore]

Thanks for the reply. I finished working with the support center and it was decided to order a new DVD drive to replace the existing drive. I'm not really confident this will work, but HP said they had to try sending me the drive first before they could send someone onsite to check out the enclosure. I'm still worried I am doing something wrong. But I must be going through the right steps to attach the drive to the blade system because it did work briefly after I flashed the OA and iLO firmware. The big problem is that this is taking a long time to fix and my customer is losing patience. If someone could quickly list the steps to attach a DVD drive to a blade OS, just to reassure me I am doing it correctly, that would be a big help. Thanks.

[Steven Whitmore]

I tried using an external CD drive connected to the USB port on the Onboard Administrator, after removing the DVD drive mounted in the enclosure. OA saw the new drive and I was able to get connected status on all blades in OA. But I'm still not able to access the drive from any of the operating systems on the blades. Any new ideas?

[Raghuarch]

Steps to attach the DVD.

1. Insert the DVD Media to DVD Drive.
2. Using OA GUI or CLI connect it to server.
a. GUI: you can go to DVD drive page and select the Server Blade and connect.
b. CLI: "set server dvd connect < Bay Number>".
3. At this time if you have OS on the server blade, it should see the new media.

[Raghuarch]

Try removing and Inserting the OA Tray.
It looks like a connector problem.
Check the Pins on the back of the Tray. Make sure you don't have any bent Pins.

[Steven Whitmore]

Thanks for the reply. I tried reseating the OA and that didn't help. I also reseated all the blades. I seem to be doing everything right, but I can't get OS access to the enclosure DVD drive. I need to pull the OA and check the connection pins. Could I possibly have a defective OA assembly?