ProLiant DL380 G3 won't boot from CD

[gstaniak]

Hi,

I've just got a refurbished DL380 G3 (being a network admin in a school means seeing a lot of second-hand equipment) and I'm trying to install an OS -- whatever I do, I can't get the server to boot from CD. Physically it looks all right: the LED is blinking, the disc is spun up. The boot order is the following: CD, Net, HDD (SmartArray first), floppy. However, in the console the "Attempting CD boot" message is just immediately followed by "Attempting NIC boot" (or so), without any real visible attempt to read the boot discs. And in iLO, in the "System Status|Server and iLO diagnostics" section, I get the sequence:

FE48 Attempting CD Boot

FE54 No bootable devices

I'll be grateful for suggestions. I haven't beeen able to find any setting that could possibly disable CD boot so far, this model doesn't boot from USB, and I rather doubt I'll be able to get FDD boot media from distributors.