HP ProLiant DL385 G7 w/ HP P410i SSD RAID 1+0 -> Windows 2012 R2 can't install

[SaproGmbH]

Hi Community,

i've got 3 HP ProLiant DL385 G7 Servers, which i want to merge to a Hyper-V 2012 R2 Cluster.

I installed 2 HP Enterprise SSDs (200 GB each) which are connected to the internal HP 410i controller. In the controller Software (ORCA) i created a "RAID 1+0" (RAID-1 was not available somehow) logical Volume and told the controller to boot from it. This worked so far and the controller recons the harddisks and says that the logical volume is "OK".

The servers Diagnostic Utility (F10) also states, that the boot volume is found, accessable and states everything as "OK".

So i bootet Windows Server 2012 R2 from the original DVD using a USB DVD-ROM Drive and started the installation. Windows then asks, to which drive to install and sees no drives. So i install the HP 410i driver from the HP website, which works properly. But still there are no drives recognized. Even if the controller driver is installed (obviousely working).

I've been told to create the RAID-volume using the SmartStart CD. I tried that, but the CD does not run from my USB DVD-Drive. The CD boots, shows a boot Screen with a HP Logo and some kind of loading progress bar. After that is finished it hangs at a black screen and nothing happens.

Do you have any ideas, what i am doing wrong and why Windows Server 2012 R2 does not see the logical volume although the controller and the server diagnostigs say, that everything is OK?

Is it the RAID 1+0 thing, maybe? (There doesn't seem to be a RAID-1 available in the controller setup tool ORCA; only Non-RAID, RAID-0 and RAID 1+0) I'm not sure what else to check.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions.

[gregersenj]

Well.

If you got 2 drives, and conifgure them for RAID 1+0, you gto a RAID 1 :). This way, if you add more drives to the array, it will spread the RAID over more drives. For as long you add them to the array.
Look for the Smart array technology brief.

When you have created an arrray and a logical drive, what ORCA does, you can install any OS you like, and all you need is a driver (DOS doesn't care). 2012 is supported on G7.
If you are installing 1 or just a few servers, smart start is the best tool, if it is a supported O/S.