Proliant ML370 Boot Problem

[Mark Elder]

Hi All,

I am trying to get my Proliant ML370 Rack G1 to boot from a CD, any CD. Here's what I have tried so far.

1. I have tried a System Erase and reinstallation the logical partition and the system partition for the system utilities - No Luck.

2. I have run a complete set of diagnostics on the Server and not found any problems at all.

3. BIOS has been upgraded to the latest for this model P17 (2002)

4. I have tried setting the Boot Order to CD-A-C in System Configuration - No Luck.

5. I have tried a SmartStart 5.50 CD on someone's recommendation here. - No luck.

6. I have tried the latest SmartStart 7.10 CD - No Luck

I know the SmartStart CD's boot OK because I tried them on another box from cold boot.

When booting up - the server appears to briefly poll the CD-ROM before ignoring it and booting from the Floppy Drive.

The CD-ROM appears to be hanging of the IDE controller.

The Server has a SmartArray 5300 Controller with 5 Disks. 4 are a logical partition and 5th disk is an online spare. 5300 Controller is set as Boot Controller and appears to work fine.

What do I have to do to get this f****king server to boot off the CD-ROM?
I would tear my hair out if I had any :-)

HELP! to any ML370 Guru lurking out there.

Thx

Mark

PS. Has anyone made themselves a Windows 2003 Server boot disk with the drivers included to recognize and load the CDRom disk for the rest of the install.? - If so could I trouble you for a copy of this boot floppy?

[weik]

Hi Mark
Dumb question from me: Have you replaced the CD-ROM Drive? I had problems with older ML370 and PL1600 with CD-ROM that no longer function.
kurt

[Mark Elder]

Interesting - that's good to know. I will try swapping the CDROM out and see what happens. Thanks for the tip

[Mark Elder]

Forgot to ask - do you happen to know what brand of CDROM was typically used in the ML370.
Will and IDE CDROM function if I swap it out for the purposed of acting as a boot CDROM?

[weik]

Hi Mark
i think you can take "any" IDE CD-ROM Drive from a PC. In my two ML370 are:
COMPAQ SC-140S (i think is Samsung)
COMPAQ CRD-8402B (may be LG Electronics).

I installed W2k3 Enterprise Edition from CD.

greeting
kurt

[David Orwig]

Don't forget the older Compaqs used to like the "cable select" setting on the ide drives. I could not get a 1600 to boot with it set to master or slave, however it worked in 'CS'.

[Mark Elder]

Thanks David

Where is that CD switch? - On the CDROM itself or somewhere in the machine?

Thanks for your help

Mark

[Stephen Kebbell]

Hi Mark,

it's a Jumper on the back of the CD drive. There should be 3 possible positions, marked by MA, SL and CS. Put the jumper on the one for CS.

Regards,
Stephen

[Mark Elder]

Thank you sir

[Mark Elder]

Hey Stephen

I tried setting the CDROM jumpers to C/S and certainly you can hear the CDROM powering up during Boot. It still doesn't help though. I have tried SmartStart 5.5, 6.3 and 7.10 CD's.
I have tired creating W2000 boot disks but after booting off the first floppy and displaying "Inspecing hardware configuration" it says non-system disk.

I think what I need to do that this point is blow awaye every piece of configuration data on the server and boot it like it just came out of the box for the first time. What should I do to return the servers configuration to its bare state and the point where you would use a SmartStart CD to configure everything.?

Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't a Proliant boot off a smartstart CD regardless of whether the server has partition based configuration installed or not?

I even tried swapping the CDROM drive out to eliminate that as a possibility for one I know works with no successs.

I ran extensive diagnostics with no problems reported. There's nothing about this server to indicate it shouldn't boot to configuration normally.

Proliants never used to be this temperamental.......

Thanks

Mark