DL360 G4 Win 2003

[Nick Yokarinis]

Having trouble installing win2003 on a DL360 G4.
The unattented install works fine as well as the disk formatting however once 2003 attempst to load for the first time the server reboots...any help would be appreciated

[Jim Edelman]

Does it make it all the way through the GUI mode install (Registering components, etc) and then reboots without a blue screen or any other indication of a problem? Are you using a TXTSETUP.OEM to specify the mass storage controller drivers?

If this is the case, I was having the same problem on some 360 G3 servers a while ago. It turned out that the mass storage drivers were not being installed correctly. I ended up taking the drivers (.SYS and .INF) from a smartstart 6.4 CD and later when I needed to support the G4 I replaced only the SYS files. Since the INF files that came with the PSP seemed to be the source of the problem.

-Jim

[Michael Ellis_4]

Have encountered the same problem.

Using txtsetup.oem for the text portion of setup and have added a line for OemPnpDriversPath. Its after the registring component and the first time the machine attempts to start to windows.

Using safe mode I can see the cpqcissm is loaded.

[Dave Carlson_2]

i'm also having the same issue. i'm going to try the .inf file from PSP 6.40. my cd build script worked great for G1, G2 and G3 servers, so something definitely changed with these new G4 machines. if i'm able to fix the issue, i'll post it here.

[Dave Carlson_2]

question for Jim Edelman: the txtsetup.oem to which you refer...is that the txtsetup.oem file from the cpqcissm folder, or the txtsetup.oem file from, say, the samples folder of the scripting toolkit? the latter is the one that says at the top "this txtsetup.oem file can be used for unattended installs of Windows .NET only". thanks!

[Dave Carlson_2]

disregard the previous post. i got my files confused... :-)

[Richard Moakes]

These new G4 servers are a pain.

I have an unattended build for 2K3 which has been fine for G2/G3 etc... but now with G4 it has fallen to bits.

Problems so far...

1). Need to add extra lines to unattend.txt
UpdateInstalledDrivers=Yes
DisableVirtualOemDevices=Yes

2). Need to update cpqcissm drivers during textmode phase and via Pnp drivers path, as 6i uses cissm driver, but at a higher rev than that supplied on 2k3 retail disk.

3). Even if you disable the 2nd NIC in the BIOS, 2k3 finds it, and then binds tcp/ip to NIC2 rather than NIC1, which causes problems for joining domains during build process. I tried disabling Hyperthreading to see if that causes problems, but it made no difference.

So, we have a BIOS that doesn't disable devices properly, way to go HP, progress indeed.

At the moment, I have given up, every time I fix one problem, another one appears with these G4 servers.

Richard

[Dave Carlson_2]

Richard Moakes, were you able to get your build script working? i added the two lines that you mentioned, and have been loading the drivers from the smartstart 7.10 CD using PnPDriversPath. the box still reboots after completing the install and starting up for the first time. this is incredibly frustrating. even Automated Deployment Services isn't working on these G4 machines. what the heck did HP do to their servers?! anyway, if you have any tips, i would be most grateful to hear them. thanks!

[Halil Tulumbaci]

Questions for all:

Are you using RDP or only SSSTK?
Have you problems only with drivers from SmartStart CD 7.10 or also with previous SmartStart versions?

[Richard Moakes]

I did manage to get it work, but I am still having problems with NIC enumeration which causes the server to fail to join the domain I have specified in the unattend.txt

To stop the problem with boot failure after initial file copying, you will need to work with the textmode part of unattend.txt

Mine looks like this...

[MassStorageDrivers]
"Smart Array 5300 Controller" = "OEM"
"Smart Array 5i, 532, 5312 Controllers" = "OEM"
"Smart Array 6i, 641, 642, 6400, 6400EM Controllers" = "OEM"
"IDE CD-ROM (ATAPI 1.2)/PCI IDE Controller" = "RETAIL"
"Adaptec AIC-789X/AHA-3960 Ultra160 PCI SCSI Card" = "RETAIL"
"Adaptec Ultra320 Family SCSI Controller" = "RETAIL"
"Compaq Drive Array" = "RETAIL"
"Compaq Fibre Channel Host Controller" = "RETAIL"
"Compaq Smart Array Controller" = "RETAIL"
"Mylex DAC960/Digital SWXCR-Ex Raid Controller" = "RETAIL"

[OEMBootFiles]
cpqcissm.cat
cpqcissm.inf
cpqcissm.sys
txtsetup.oem

You will need to make sure the files referenced in [OEMBootFiles] are available in the $oem$\Textmode along with a suitably modified txtsetup.oem which I have attached.

This will also need all the usual OEMPreinstall stuff setup in unattend.txt as well

[Unattended]
Unattendmode=DefaultHide
OemPreinstall=Yes
OemPnPDriversPath=PnP\scsi\cpqcissm;PnP\net\intel;PnP\net\fast;Pnp\net\giga;Pnp\net\Nc67xx;PnP\net\NC31XX;Pnp\net\NC61XX;PnP\display
TargetPath=\WINDOWS
Filesystem=ConvertNTFS
ExtendOEMPartition=2048
DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore
OemSkipEula=Yes
UpdateInstalledDrivers=Yes
DisableVirtualOemDevices=Yes
Win9xUpgrade=No
Emsskipunattendprocessing=yes
NtUpgrade=No

Even if you get this working, you will still run into a brick wall with the network cards if you want to join a domain as part of the unattended process.

Good Luck,

Richard