SmartStart Release 6.0 - - any major issues?

[David MacWilliams]

Hello, Our organizations uses a variety of Compaq Proliant servers and is planning to start using SmartStart 6.0. Can anyone advise if there are any major known problems (or "Gotchas") with SmartStart 6.0 and Windows 2000 or NT (not Novell)?
Any info would be appreciated. Thank you!

[Mark Cloutier]

Smart Start 6.0 is NOT compatible with any Proliant Server that has a F10 parition. Only the newer G2 and G3 models with be supported on Smart Start 6.0 that has an RBSU.

[James McKay_1]

We have been using SmartStart 6.0 for approximately three weeks now. So far, it works faster, easier, and with the exception that it doesn't support most G1 servers, it has saved us a great deal of time. We have built over 40 servers W2K and NT 4.0 with it and have yet to run into any problems. You will notice it now uses Linux as the OS rather than DOS and it requires fewer reboots to set servers up.

[Henry Parker]

I would have to disagree with James McKay's response to your question.

SmartStart 6.0 has a bug and a serious flaw when it comes to file systems.

The bug: [Tested with NT4 Select edition on a DL380G3 with 2GB RAM and dual 2.8Mhz Xeon] When you are creating your system partition, if you specify (for example) a 4096MB NTFS logical volume size, SS6 will say that the minimum size is something like 5076MB. So you reboot, re-carve the logical volumes, enter 5076MB and it says that 61??MB is the smallest size. So you eventually ignore the warnings, and go with 4096MB, only to find that SS6 has a limit of 4000MB for the actual NTFS partition!

The serious flaw: After the logical volumes are created, the partitions are setup, and you've installed Windows, examining the disk's partition table reveals invalid cyclinder numbers. This would normally go un-noticed, as the machine boots OK, but try to run any tool like Server Magic, Partition Magic or Drive Image Pro, and it will throw up errors. Use these tools to fix the partition tables, and say goodbye to your system partition, containing your O/S. We have been investigating this flaw, and believe the Linux tools used to generate the partitions are at fault. However, HP are rather slow in responding to any queries that we have on the matter.

[Mark Mc Daniels]

One clarification to make. You can use SS 6.0 for pre-G1/G2 servers for updating the drivers and Insight agents. SS 6.0 is not compatible for setting up these servers, otherwise, the rest of functionality is still there.

[Mark Matthews]

Hello,

I have encountered various problems when using SmartStart 6 and onwards.
Please see my post here...

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xc7629c196a4bd71190080090279cd0f9,00.html

Ive contacted Compaq/HP tech support about this and all they could do was supply Softpaq numbers that Ive already tried.
And didnt get much response at all re the mouse not working in SmartStart...
Ive a sneaky feeling thats down to the customer in question not using a Compaq KVM though!

Ive also in the last week had a server (Proliant DL380 G2) completely refuse to boot from any SmartStart CD version 6 or 6.10. Tried the usual stuff, different CDs, different CDROM drives etc. It would just hang after putting 5 and a half lines of dots on the screen and wouldnt go any further!

Compaq/HP tech support couldnt help with this one either!

Just my two pence!

Mark...

[Tasuyuki Takashi]

Hi,
I just got a HP Proliant ML350 G3 server.I am trying to install the OS by using the SmartStart 6.4b. The problem is the server will restart it self everytime the smartstart is starting. There will be a line of dots appearing then the server will restart.Can someone please help me with this.
Thanks