Proliant ML330 G2 Hard Drives

[William T.]

Is it possible to boot from an IDE hard drive on this server? I installed an IDE hard drive and cannot see that it is recognized as a bootable drive by the bios. If it can't be used as a bootable drive, then do I need a SCSI drive or can I use a PCI card to make the IDE bootable. I connected the IDE to the secondary IDE plug which I enabled in the bios.

Also what IRQs do the SCSI controllers use. I disabled them in the bios and neglected to record the IRQs. Mea Culpa.

Windows 2000 recognizes the IDE drive but I can't load it fully. I can't get the GUI section. I get caught in an endless loop in the text section. After I use the 4 boot disks and Windows begans to load and reboots I have to start all over again. I suspect this is because the IDE is not recignized as a bootable drive.

I appreciate any help. This is my first run at operating a server.

[Sigi J]

hi,

you are right: Proliant SCSI-Servers do not boot from IDE-harddisks, they only boot from IDE-CDROM for setting up the OS.

If you want ot boot from a IDE harddrive, you need to insert a seperate IDE-controller, then set this controller as boot controller in config menu.

[William T.]

I also understand that only hard drives of 40GB or less are recognized. If this is true, can I install a 120GB and partition the drive into 3 40GB partitions? Or do I need to get separate drives?

Thanks again

[Sigi J]

i never heard about a 40GB limit for IDE-HDs on a Proliant. Where did you find this info?

[William T.]

I read it in the manual. It says that my Proliant is limited to 4 SCSI HDDs of 36.4GBs or 4 IDE HDDs of 40GBs. Is this not so? I could have possibly read the information wrong or misunderstood what I was reading. Maybe I was reading the wrong manual. I was reading from the CD ROM that came with my server.

[Sigi J · Accepted solution]

these were the options of _new_ ML330 or ML330e Servers. THE ML330 is a SCSI-server, the ML330e has a EIDE-RAID controller, which can be equipped with 2 or 4 IDE-drives.

But there is no general limit to 40 GB IDE or 36.4 GB SCSI-drives. So you can install a 120 GB drive, when you use a seperate IDE-controller.

[William T.]

Ok good. Thanks. So I just need to add to 120 GB to a IDE card (one came with the drive) to make it bootable. That solves that problem.

What is the secondary IDE controller on the motherboard for? IDEs that just store data and do not contain the operating system?

When I install Windows 2000 server advanced do install with the SmartStart or by itself. I have SmartStart 6.2. Should I download the newer version or use the one I have? And what about the hp management CD? Do I install that software after the os? I release 6.2. Should I update that as well? And should I update the bios?

Thanks.