Windows 2008 R2 installation fail - no HDD detected

[Jakobovic]

Hello all, we recently acquired a Proliant DL585 with 2x72GB SAS HDDs.

Windows 2008 R2 install fails because it cannot detect any HDD drives; I tried supplying storage drivers from this page:

http://h20566.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=3219726&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=4024

and the only driver applicable (according to Win install) is "Smart Array P600 Controller", but install still cannot find any HDD drives.

Any help is welcome!

[Torsten.]

There is a DL585 G1, G2, G5, G6 and G7.

What is your model?

[Jimmy Vance]

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@Jakobovic wrote:

Hello all, we recently acquired a Proliant DL585 with 2x72GB SAS HDDs.

Windows 2008 R2 install fails because it cannot detect any HDD drives; I tried supplying storage drivers from this page:

http://h20566.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=3219726&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=4024

and the only driver applicable (according to Win install) is "Smart Array P600 Controller", but install still cannot find any HDD drives.

Any help is welcome!

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Did you create an array and logical drives using the built in config utility (ORCA) or the Array Configuration Utility (ACU)? If you don't create an array and logical drive(s) the OS won't see the disks

[Jakobovic]

Hello, the model variant is G1.

The computer was in use before in our university computing center with a *nix installation.

I haven't made any changes and haven't used any configuration utility; are there instructions on how to create logical drives? (or whatever it needs)

Thanks!

[Jimmy Vance]

When the systems is going through POST, the Smart Array firmware will identify version and show how many logical drives are configured. What does your system report?

[Jakobovic]

(ah, I actually have to _read_ what it says, now we're getting somewhere... sorry about that)

It says quite a lot actually; I attach the screenshot and the physical configuration of the front: bays (or slots?) 1 and 2 occupied by a 72GB disk each, all others unused.

[Torsten.]

It says the disks are bad and need to be replaced.

Press F8 at this point to view more details.

[Jakobovic]

OK, solved the Smart Array problem...

(the system was configured with raid 5 using 4 drives, but they _removed_ 2 drives before giving us the computer and didn't changed the config. The disks are not bad, they are simply not there ;)

I reconfigured using the available disks)

After that, W2008 recognized the drive, and after a few minor trials and errors (e.g. must remove the usb stick for Windows install to be able to use the system partition - silly) we finally managed to install the OS.

Thanks for the help!