Netserver LS

[Ricardo Zapato]

Hey, I got this server from a company that was just throwing them out, and I figured that it might make a nice server since my current one is leaving me :(.

Now, I've never before worked with something like this (still in high school working on teh MCSE.) Therefore, I'm totally lost.

It's a dual 166 with 128MB of ram. 3x4 GIG SCSI drives (hot swap)attached to what I'm guessing is a RAID card. The SCSI CD-ROM that it came with was DOA, so I replaced it with another SCSI CD-ROM. I may have destroyed whatever SCSI raid array was setup whilst playing with cables, not sure. All I know is that I somehow managed to boot to a Windows 29SE boot disk, fdisked the drives and made a new partition, but I think I may have screwed it up. But that's another problem.

What I want to do is boot from my Windows 2000 Advanced Server CD and install that. I put the CD in teh drive, boot, and it says it's detected but it will just sit there. It makes no attempt to boot from it. It will sometimes boot from the floppy (windows 98se disk only), otherwise it just reboots.

Any ideas? I have no idea on how to access the bios. I've tried many key combinations, and they generally all end up with a keyboard error because I've hit it so many times.

Totally lost and open to any and all ideas.

Thanks ;).

[Jake ~zippo~]

I justed checked the OS compatibility of LS server for you.It only support NT and does not support Windows 2000.

[Ricardo Zapato]

But shouldn't I still be able to at least boot to a cd? Right now it's not booting to any cd and will only sometimes boot to a floppy.

[Mark Young_2]

Hi,

This server requires an ECU disk to access the BIOS. If you don't have one, you will have to download it from HP. You have to have an ECU that matches the current BIOS. Your best bet is to download the latest BIOS and ECU from here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?locale=en_US&pnameOID=15436&taskId=135&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=50458&submit.y=6&submit.x=10&cc=us&swEnvOID=54

First, clear CMOS with switch 1 on the system board, flash the BIOS, and then you will have to go into the ECU on boot up. Then you can make any changes you want.

I also noticed at the above link that there are two patches for this server, you may want to download them and look at the read me files to see if they apply to you.

Mark

[Terri Harris]

Because the Netserver LS is one of the original Netservers there is limited information still available. But documentation is posted here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&locale=en_US&docIndexId=179911&taskId=101&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=50458

Note: The Netserver LS appears in Volume 2 of the Netserver Service Handbook

[Ricardo Zapato]

Thanks everyone!

I will look at everything, download the BIOS updates and give it a try. Taking it to school tomorrow so all the other geeks can help.

Once again, many thanks ;-).

[Ricardo Zapato]

Some Updates:

I managed (just last night in fact, after not working on it for a few months) to install Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and then from that installation I installed Windows 2000 Serve on a 4GB IDE drive attached to the IDE interface.

I ditched the add-on raid card and hooked the SCSI disks up to the onboard SCSI controllers (along with a SCSI CD-ROM and Tape Drive). Upon doing that Windows 2000 Server allowed me to create a RAID array of the SCSI disks, so I'm proud of the work.

And now I need to configure this server. According to Windows the video adaptor is a Cirrus Logic 64xx/542x Compatible, and in all my searching I have not found a single viable driver for it.

Any help?

Once again I'd like to thank everyone for their help in this venture :).

[Terri Harris]

The video controller on the Netserver LS is actually a Cirrus Logis 5446, with 512 KB of video RAM (there was an option to make this 1MB).
There is no HP driver - HP supported the use of the driver included on the Microsoft CD. I assume you are looking to upgrade the video driver? If so, there is no HP upgrade.
Note: NT 4.0 Workstation was not tested by HP on any of the Netservers, don't know if this will be a problem or not.

[Ricardo Zapato]

NT 4.0 was originally on there, and then I upgraded it to 2000 Server (running just fine ;-)).

I got terminal services working so it's not necessary to use an external monitor, but thanks for the help anyways :).

Richard.