Windows 2003 Server on a Proliant DL380/733

[John_602]

I forgot one thing. Before I upgraded the BIOS with the online version. I re-ran the bios upgrade with the offline- rom-paq version. It said that my bios was already up to date with 12/18/2002 but I ran it anyway.

I also just installed the latest support pack and everything is still running. the computer type is ACPI multiproccessor pc.

[Brandon Powers]

John and Frank,

I've already upgraded my BIOS with the latest offline ROMPaq to no effect.

I wonder if there is something to selecting Advanced Server. I can't really do a system erase though. I wonder if there is another way to set that? I don't remember seeing that (Advanced Server) option when running the system partition utilities.

Thanks,
Brandon

[Jon Ward]

Review the Upgrading the Windows Server 2003 White Paper at ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/supportinformation/papers/tc030408in_rev0_us.pdf and see if there was anything that was overlooked.

[Kevin Tribelhorn]

With help from Franks "do-over" steps, I was able to do the same thing this past weekend. Just and FYI, this is what I did:

- I used the smart start CD version 5.3 (didn't have 5.4)
- Ran system erase utiltiy.
- Restarted system.
- Smartstart started and chose to manually configure the system.
- Choose Windows 2000 advanced server( English)
- Configured 2 arrays in my case an 8GB RAID 0+1, followed by a RAID 5 for the remainder. Using the 5300 controller in slot 3 which came up already configured (since the onboard controller isn't attached to anything.) The controller in slot 3 is primary as its theonly one in use.
- Let Smartstart reboot the server as many times as needed. I thought at this point something got hosed since it reboot a couple of times, but eventually it came up with the "place server install CD in drive wizard".
- Placed Win2003 server CD n drive and manually installed Windows 2003 from CD.

Once this was done, I download the 7.10A support pack from here: http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/supportpaq.html and installed what I could. A few items didn't install, but I'm not sure if they needed to be or not.

Then I installed, NAV, and all Win2K3 server hot fixes before I connected the server to the network.

Next I installed Baseline Analyser and ran a scan. Once that was done I ran Windows Update immediately to patch any other holes.

And that was it. Server is running fine, though it seems to me to be a tad "sluggish". Not sure why. Event viewer doesn't show any errors or such.

All in all a fairly perfect setup.

Thanks Frank for the initial insite.


Kevin

[Kevin Tribelhorn]

Oops, one more thing. You need to upgrade your BIOS to the newest P17 version: http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/17424.html

From what i read, this is the latest and last ROMPaq for the DL380 (G1) servers.

[Jon Ward]

If it seems a little sluggish, see if you have degraded hardware by accessing the hp System Management Homepage from http://ipaddress:2301 .