HP DL185 Server Wont start

[Tunde Aina]

My HP proliant Server DL185GS has refused to start in all modes, safe, Last Known Good Configuration ETC. I cant find the backup discs. while trying to boot it says system log full. I have been able to identify a faulty hard drive although a faulty hard drive should not prevent the server from booting since it is RAID

[Trygve Henriksen]

That would be RAID1 or RAID5?

DL185GS? You mean G5?
(Generation 5, in case you wonder)

'System log full' alone shouldn't stop a server from restarting. IT just means it can't write any error messages to it.
(It may be possible to boot the server with a Linux LiveCD and rename the system logfile, to resolve that issue)

[Michael A. McKenney]

Is the OS in RAID 5. I have seen this happen with a corrupted paging file. The OS and Paging/swap should only be in RAID 1 or 10 and never 5.

Did you do any upgrades on it? I have seen Windows patches and generic hardware patches cause this.

A faulty hard drive could cause this issue. Try replacing it. You will also want to upgrade the firmware on all drives so they match. You don't want mismatched firmware.

[Tunde Aina]

Its a RAID 10. Please whats the filename of the system logfile?

would booting with DOS CD achieve the same thing as the linux live CD?

[Michael A. McKenney]

DOS CD will not get into NTFS. You could boot the OS CD/DVD and do a repair administrative session. This will get you to C:\Windows. Look for bootlog.txt.

I would start with the HP Diagnostics on the RAID drives. Replace the bad drive. Get it to fail over and rebuild. A bad drive could cause Windows to corrupt. So start by replacing the bad drive. You don't want to run a server with bad hard drives in RAID. You should consider two spare drives for RAID 10.

[Tunde Aina]

Thanks Michael. I will start with replacing the hard drive

[Jimmy Vance]

What controller are you using? The embedded SATA RAID controller (software RAID), or a plug in Smart Array COntroller?


>although a faulty hard drive should not
>prevent the server from booting since it
>is RAID

Depending on the RAID level (RAID 0 is a good example) a bad disk can destroy a RAID volume.

>Michael A. McKenney
>The OS and Paging/swap should only be
>in RAID 1 or 10 and never 5.

Regardless of the issue here, I will have to disagree with this statement. There is no reason the OS/Paging file cannot be located on a RAID 5 array.

[Tunde Aina]

I think the RAID is a Smart Array Controller.

Michael, please what version of Linux live cd do i need? server or desktop edition?