server won't boot

[Rob Pearson]

Our ML350 won't boot, it hangs at the BIOS screen. Pressing F10 changes the text 'F10 Setup' to 'Setup', but that's all that happens. The numlock LED works, also I have unplugged our external SCSI tape drive and by-passed our KNV switch, to no avail. Is clearing CMOS and NVRAM a safish thing to do? any help appreciated!

[Lance Brown · Accepted solution]

Do you have any additional cards in the machine, like SCSI? If you do, remove them as well. Any USB devices?

[Rob Pearson]

It has 4 hot plug drives off the one standard SCSI controller, an external HP DAT (now unplugged), on a KNV switch (now bypassed), 896MB RAM. Other than that there have been no h/w changes for a while and several successful restarts have been done since then. I have cleared the CMOS with no effect. The BIOS/SCSI is not getting as far as detecting the HDDs etc, the hard disks are not spinning up. Thanks so far, any more ideas? (I need it back up in 20hours!)

[Lance Brown]

Remove the drives and see if that helps. I doubt it???s a SCSI problem, but might as well as rule it out. If I think of anything else, I will post again.

[Rob Pearson]

All OK now. FYI: before leaving for home I reconnected the external DAT, and the KNV switch, I also took the side off again and gave all connectors a waggle, powered up and "Bob's your Uncle" it's OK.
Thank you for giving me your time, I didn't feel quite so isolated!