DL380 G7 server 2008 R2 x64 won't install

[cmslick3]

My friend has a server he asked me to do an install on last night. This is my first time working with a server so I was careful to read before I attempted anything.

Specs:

DL380 G7

18GB RAM

2x 500GB SATA drives

DVD rom optical drive

Xeon 3.8GHz

The short of the story is no matter if I tried using the smart start 8.70b cd or the server 2008 R2 disc the install would not go through. The smart start install stopped at the point where it asks you to insert the windows media DVD and the progress stops at 27%. With the windows DVD I get to a screen asking for drivers and no matter what drivers I DL from HP it says none of them apply.

I tried the suggestion of resetting the BIOS settings to default, and deleting and re-creating the RAID partition. I also looked at a whole bunch of other suggestions I found through Google and still no luck. I also ran the smart firmware updater and this did not help either.

Any thoughts on what we need to do next?

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

Here are few workarounds:

1.  Remove additional RAM and install only minimum RAM in specified slots, refer to this link:

     http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c02215414

2.  Remove any additional PCI cards if installed.

3.  Remove any tape storage if connected.

4.  Remove any USB hard drives if connected.

And preferably, perform a diagnostics on the server to see if any hardware has failed.

Good Luck!

[Phil.Howell]

Maybe there is a problem with the dvd or the dvd drive?

Burn another copy and see if it stops in the same place.

Try using an external usb dvd (may cause more problems than it fixes though)

Ask your ex-friend for the ILO username/password (may be on a label)

then you can use a smartstart iso on the network as a "virtual" dvd

Then there is the PXE boot options......

[cmslick3]

Well both of your suggestions are well appreciated, however we found the solution on our own the next day.

The DVD which my friend burned was bad. He made two more copies and the third one finally worked. He didn't bother to leave the PC alone while the ISO was burning and finally on the 3rd attempt he was in a meeting which allowed the disc to finish properly.

Thanks for all the help. 

[Elumbis]

Found a working solution in another post (I switched from Chrome to  the download manager in Internet Explorer).

"I have just experienced exactly this problem, and have now found the solution.

The problem comes about when downloading an ISO from Microsoft which appears to complete successfully, but in fact is only a partial download.

When downloading an ISO from the MS website, instead of using the 'web browser' download option it is better to use the 'Download Manager' option. This ensures a complete download.

As soon as I did this the installation went ahead successfully."

Strange that MS does not have an MD5 check option.