Proliant 2500 System Halted

[Scott_179]

I have a Proliant 2500 system that had Red Hat Linux 7.0 on it and it worked just fine. I wanted to try and install Windows 2000 on it so I put the SmartStart Release 3.10B CD in and booted off of it. I selected the erase option and it did its erasing and then said to recycle the power so I did. Now I get a bunch of errors at boot and I cannot do anything. Here are the errors.

172-EISA Configuration Nonvolatile Memory Invalid Initialization Aborted
162-System Options Not Set
1785-Slot 1 Drive Array Not Configured Run Compaq Array Configuration Utility
1702-SCSI Cable Error Detected, System Board
System Halted

My system BIOS is - E24 (12/01/1999) and my SMART-2/P Array Controller is (version 1.36). I thought I would be able to boot from the cd again after I did the erase part but I guess I was wrong. If anybody has any ideas please help. Thanks

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello Scott,
First of all the Smart Start 3.10B wont let you install W2K. You would definitely need an updated version of Smart Start otherwise you would end up downloading all kinds of Softpaqs from our website. The latest smart start CD your server would accept is 5.50B and that can be ordered by call 1-800-573-1099.
To update the firmware version of the controller you need to go to the following link:
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/14694.html
You will be asked to make four diskettes but make the first one only.
Now if you would like to order the smart start CD that's fine otherwise let us know 'cos I can give you whole bunch of SW which you would need to set up your server.

Regards,

[Scott_179]

How do I get it to even boot from the floppy or cd-rom drive in order to do any upgrades? The system doesn't even get to the floppy boot.

-Scott

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello Scott,
In that case you will have to manually reset the Switch no 6 on SW1. By default the Switch is to the OFF position. You need to turn it ON and then power on the server. Once it goes through the post then power it down and put the switch back to it's original position. This should reset your server's configuration.

Cheers,

[Shep Johnson]

Scott - I've got 4 of these servers. Following the erase and reboot, it is normal to get the first 3 messages and they are actually not errors because the NVRAM was cleared, the system options are not set and the array is now unconfigured. Under normal circumstances, these messages are expected after which the server will detect the basic hardware setup such as the floppy, cdrom and RAM, and as I recall ask you to press F1 to save the changes. It will then reboot and allow you to startup on either a floppy disk or bootable CD and configure your server.

However, in your case you get the following error...

1702-SCSI Cable Error Detected, System Board
System Halted

...which isn't normal and doesn't allow you to do anything because the server halts rather than proceeding to the basic hardware detection.

If we take the error literally, then you have a problem with a SCSI cable which is causing the system to halt. Some trial and error should easily expose the bad cable, after which you should be able to proceed normally as outlined earlier.