HP Proliant DL360e Gen8 - Windows Server 2008 R2 install - No drives were found.

[chopsticks]

Hi guys

I hope you can help. I'm having a bit of a nightmare with installing Windows Server 2008 R2 on an HP Proliant DL360e Gen8 server.

Whenever I get to the point of selecting the drive in which to install Windows I receive the following error:

"No drives were found. Click Load driver to find mass storage driver for installation"

Prior to installing Windows I configured 2 RAID arrays. There are 4 hard disks and I split them into two logical disks with RAID 1. (I had initially configured RAID 10, but later deleted the array and configured the above). I also ran a diagnostics check on the disks to ensure they were working fine.

I then copied the contents from an OS cd to a USB (server has no CD/DVD tray) and commenced the installation. Upon receiving the error above I attempted to download a few drivers from HP for my server's model that related to storage and copied them to the USB. Whilst installing Windows I tried browsing to the location on the USB where I have copied the drivers however Windows didn't detect any compatible drivers.

I then tried copying a new ISO to the USB in case it was an issue with the one I'd been using but again I had the same problem.

To me it seems like a driver issue as the RAID controller is able to identify the disks without any problem. One thing that dawned on me though is that the server uses a SATA controller but the hard disks are SAS. Could this be an issue? I seem to find conflicting info on the web as to whether or not they are compatible. I didn't buy the hard disks however my boss told me he was sure they were compatible at the time.

But still the error during the install seems more related to drivers than hardware? surely the RAID config utility would of had an issue detecting the hard disks? Also when copying the drivers to the USB is it fine to copy them to any location or is there a default location that I should be copying them to?

Sorry for the long post but I'm at wits end.

Thanks in advance.

CS

[chopsticks]

Just an update on this. I've wired a connection to iLO on the box and remotely connected to the box on another machine.

I was looking at system information and under storage I get the message:

"No Smart Array Controller found"

"HP Smart Array Controller or HP Dynamic Smart Array RAID Controller is required to display drive array information."

I find this strange as I've already configured a RAID array on the device so surely it should be able to detect the controller.

I decided to try downloading the Storage Controller from the HP website anyway

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=5249571&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=5249570&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=4064

I just created a folder on the usb called Drivers (that also contains the OS) and copied the driver there but when installing Windows and browsing to the folder it doesn't detect any compatible drivers...

[Dave73]

Make sure what model of controller you are using:

HP Dynamic Smart Array B120i Controller is an up to 6Gb/s SATA controller. It supports up to 6 SATA drives with RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID10 capabilities. RAID 5 is available with optional FBWC module on selected server models.

The Dynamic Smart Array B320i is an up to 6Gb/s SAS or SATA controller. It supports up to 8 SAS or SATA drives with RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10. RAID 5 is available with optional FBWC module.

[anthony11]

I had a similar issue with several systems last year, albeit not with MS-DOS.

Since ORCA is no longer able to be entered at boot-time on the console, I ended up booting HP's offline array configuration utility (via PXE or iLO "scripted media", and there it showed that the cache wasn't configured.  Once I set the default read/write ratio, the HBA behaved normally.

[VladimirP]

Download from page

HP ProLiant DL360e Gen8 Server
* RECOMMENDED * HP ProLiant Dynamic Smart Array RAID Controller Driver for Windows 2008 x64 Editions (1.3MB)
Extract files from archive to any folder and connect this folder by iLO as Virtual Drive.

[dhananchezian]

hi sir

i purchased one server last week.  just now open the machine switch on continuous sound heard. i informed customer case their send one case id  no-4748873001.  cus was  shouting . what i do. pl do the needful service