How to stop HP Proliant ML 110 server from booting from usb drive

[Juan-Emil]

I'm trying to get my HP Proliant server to stop booting from the external backup drive that I have connected via the USB cable.

I have tried set the bios so that the server will always boot from the onboard hard drive and in the bios it shows a that the hard drive has been placed at the top of the list of bootable drives. Though every time there is a power failure and the server has to reboot, it tries to boot from the external hard drive.

Please can somebody help me to resolve this problem.

[cyabro]

Hi,

I am having the same problem with our ML110 G5 servers.
We supply these quite often to our clients along with some portable USB hard drives for off-site backups.
If I boot up the server with one of the USB HDDs connected it tries to boot from it.
I can go into the BIOS and disable the USB HDD under the boot menu and then the server boots fine.
The problem is that as soon as one USB HDD is unplugged and another plugged in the boot menu in the BIOS is reset and the USB HDD is once again the first boot device and is not disabled and the server tries to boot off it and fails and stalls there.

How can we set the BIOS boot menu to permanently disable USB booting?

Cheers
Chris

[cyabro]

Ok, I solved this by making the partition on each USB HDD active - Do this in Disk Management.
Then copied the boot.ini and NTLDR files from the internal HDD to each USB HDD.
Then I had to edit the boot.ini file and changed the rdisk setting from a 0 to a 1.

Now what happens is if the server reboots or is restarted for whatever reason and tries to boot off the USB HDD the boot.ini file tells the system to load the operating system on the internal HDD.

Problem solved!

[Juan-Emil]

I thought there must be a way to redirect the server to look for the operating system on the internal disk from the USB hard disk.

Does this method work with a Hp raid controller to?

[TTr]

Check out this thread and see if there is a controller boot order in addition to the ard drive boot order.

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1354557

See if there are any firmware upgrades that address this issue.

[ubicode]

I had the same problem and solved it by changing this boot configuration :

Under the "Main" menu, under "Boot Features", change "Virtual Install
Disk" option to "Disabled".

[Juan-Emil]

thank you

I tried what you said, but I can't seem to find 'virtual install disk' under boot features in the main menu of the BIOS. The BIOS version on my Proliant is Proliant BIOS 010. I don't know if this version is the same version that you are referring to.

[whydoibother]

I had the same problem with a ML110 G5 server.

Either of the following seem to work:

OPTION 1: To stop the HP Proliant ML110 G5 server from booting off a USB device enter the BIOS and navigate to:

Advanced --> USB Configuration --> USB boot device priority

Set as â LOWâ

Then go to the boot menu and set the boot priority as required. Unless the first step is conducted the boot priority will keep changing back to the USB device.

OPTION 2: refer to cyabro's post above.

[johnsondata]

1. Upgrade the bios
2. expand the hard drives in boot order as you suggested. The external usb hard drive now shows up in the list (it didn't before the bios upgrade)
3. move the external usb hard drive to the bottom of the list (disabling the external usb hard drive did not stop it from trying to boot from it.)
4. the ML110G5 now boots from the third party internal SATA Western Digital 1Tb drive like I want it too.

[Stephen Picardi]

I performed the firmware upgrade using 

• 2011.08.26 (A)
• 13 Sep 2011

It was successful,  I moved REMOVABLE DEVICES to the bottom of the list yet it still wants to boot to the external backup drive.