HP Proliant 6400R Server

[Terry Friend]

I have the Proliant 6400R Server with 3 Ultra SCSI drives.

I have 4 disketts that allow me to boot into a MS-DOS system configuration menu. However, those disketts do not have the array configuration utilities on them.

So, where do I get those utilities on a diskette???

Or, how do I get those utilities on the diskettes, when I click in the MS_DOS menu the system is asking for the diskette with the utilities...

[Pieter 't Hart]

When booting, at some time the system initializes the smart-array controller.
At that moment you need to press or to enter the bios of the controller from where you can configure the array.

[Terry Friend]

Thank You! I will give it a try...

[Terry Friend]

Also, Is there a way to take the ribbon cable off of the smartcard 3200 controller, remove the smartcard. Then, take that ribbon cable end that you removed and plug it into the system board.

This is an attempt to just boot to one of the Ultra SCSI drives, the other SCSI drives have been removed. (then install the other SCSI drives and configure the array) I understand that the other end of the ribbon cable is plugged into the ultra SCSI array board with just one SCSI drive installed.

However, the system board, on the top edge of it, has two 'D' connectors. So, which one can I plug the ribbon cable into???

Is there a keyboard sequence to get into the system BIOS setup???

[Pieter 't Hart]

Compaq used to have "F10" as the key to enter the bios-setup.
Sometimes this only works when a "utility partition" is present on the disk. if not present then the bios-setup is very basic. The rest must be done from floppy
but there should also be a "smartStart" CD for these servers. As you will need an old one this might be found else on the forum.

Basically it should be possible to connect the internal drive-cage to the MoBo. as long as it's the same SCSI-type.
(ultra-wide lvd)
scsi-2 or -3 is less important, that's more a speed issue. The scsi-3 bus falls back to scsi-2 when a scsi-2 device is detected.

I don't think you can afterwards convert this disk to an raid-(1) array because the smart arry controller will want to create a special configuration partition on this disk.
But trying won't hurt.

[Terry Friend]

I tried the or the when my 3200 smart array controller was initializing, I could hear the hardware beep, but it did not enter the setup.

So, I took the ribbon cable off of the controller and removed the controller. I then plugged the ribbon cable from the SCSI into the Peripheral Board "D" connector and booted up...

after the Peripheral Board initializes it will "spin the drives" to detect the SCSI devices, which it does detect the SCSI devices and then it says " non system disk error" press F1 to continue, which just takes you back to the same message, or you can press F10 to use the partitioning system. I have 3 Ultra SCSI drives in slots "0,1,2"

it will not boot up to the floppy disk which has the system configuration setup on it...

[Chris Rosan]

Terry,

It's saying "no system disk" because it can't find your operating system. FYI - you also aren't setting the disks up in RAID, they will just be seen as seperate disks because you don't have them connected to the smart array controller.

I suggest you do what Pieter said, and download the smartstart CD for that server. You should be able to use "any" IDE CDrom in the server if it doesn't have one.

Try this link for smartstart 5.5:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=au&prodTypeId=18964&prodSeriesId=345557&prodNameId=344318&swEnvOID=24&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-597d7cb6b45d493285e27c1412

If that doesn't work, on HP's site, click on "support and drivers" and search for "smartstart". When the results come up, select "Windows NT" and use 5.5. That version should work on your server.

[Chris D Stoneley]

I have 4.21, 5.5 & 7.1 CD-ROM's, and the ONLY one that will let you build diskettes that will run the ACU is 4.21. Unfortunately this version is so early it does not recognize the 3200 card.

As far as I know, you should only have one of the SCSI ports on the system board used at any given time. if you plug your drive back plane in there, your CD-ROM should be plugged into the back plane. If you have a controller card, the backplane should plug into the controller card, and the CD-ROM (& tape if fitted) can plug into the system board. (This is at least appropriate to 5000/5000R)