Installing RHES4 64 bit on a DL385

[BrianB_1]

I start the install, it comes up to the hardware listing and dosent show a hard drive.
It shows that it cant find the driver for the sas controller.

I have the drive configured and the logical drive made.

I have downloaded the driver for the sas controller, but the instructions only discuss installig the driver after the OS has alreasdy been installed.

Any tips on how to proceed.

Also, I downloaded the latest smartstart disc (7.40). It says it supports redhat, but it is not listed as a choice for os' to install.

Thanks

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

did you use the latest Update 2?

[Gopi Sekar]

Check this page:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/linux/dl385-drivers-cert.html

It lists the minimum required Update for RHEL 4 and also has links for drivers.

Hope this helps,
Gopi

[BrianB_1]

Ok, here is a more specific layout of what have.

HP DL 385 (G1)
Systom ROM - A05 (08/22/05)

SmartArray P600 (SAS)
ROM - 1.20 (09/09/05)

using 1 hdd for simplicity

in the array setup the disk is setup and a logical drive is created.

Downloaded the file "cpq_cciss-2.6.6-6.rhel4.x86_64.dd.gz"

This is listed as "Driver Diskette for HP ProLiant Smart Array Controller (AMD64/EM64T) for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (AMD64/EM64T)
"

using rawwrite we create the disk image onto a floppy.
the server comes with a usb floppy. We put the disk into the floppy and put in disc 1 of redhat linux enterprise 9.(we followed the instructions on the download page to the letter)

when redhat boots at the first screen we have tried the following:

1. type in "linux dd"
2. type in "linux noprobe"
3. hitting enter

if we just hit enter, the install comes back after probing the devices and says we have no disk attached to the system.

if we do "linux dd" we are promted to choose the device from a list, and asked where the driver disk is. Then it reads the floppy and says that it isnt the driver it wants.

we have double checked the driver, double checked that the disk image was created ok.

I have connected a USB hard drive jsut to be sure that I wasent missing anything else. That install went fine.

We installed Windows 2003 64bit and it went smooth as well. So basically I am at a loss.

I went to the link above and found this:

Supported kernels
2.6.9-5.EL - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 (AMD64/EM64T)
2.6.9-11.EL - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 Update 1 (AMD64/EM64T)

So we are using a supported kernel and the driver is correct.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

[Gopi Sekar]

Your machine has SAS controller, so using smart array controller driver diskette will not work.

Download the HBA/SAS controller driver diskette (it is just below Smart Array controller driver diskette)
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/23751.html

Or simply if you have recent update of RHEL 4 then use it (recent update is RHEL 4 Update 1)

Hope this helps,
Gopi

[BrianB_1]

We tried that file as well and see the same results.

I am starting to wonder if we have suspect hardware.

any other tips?

Brian

[Gopi Sekar]

I also saw latest firmware update for your controller on the same page. I am not sure whether applying that will help you.

Also if you are using latest RHEL 4 Update 1 and still could not find the hard disk then the issue could be with the hardware, it would be wise to log a support call now.

Regards,
Gopi

[BrianB_1]

Ok. Have it working now.

Update 2 did indeed work. What was funny was that we have a DL360 G4p also with the same controller. The base install of redhat worked fine.

What I would like to know is this...

If update 2 is needed to install, why dosent the support page for the DL385 state this. The only thing is says is that it is compatible with the base kernel and update 1 of redhat ES 64. No where does it even mention update 2?

Thanks for the tips and links.
Brian

[Gopi Sekar]

May be a bug in the support page :), seriously I believe you should escalate this support call so that somebody will address it for the benefit of others.

Gopi

[BrianB_1]

we are doing that now. We also see this same issue with a DL380 G4