Proliant ML 350 G2 (I think) test project

[Baalinor]

Hello,

I am a student in an NSA program and was able to get my hands on this server that is blank. About 2 years ago it was suposed to be active, but the company that had it wiped it when they were bought out. I do not have any disks but I do have an ISO of Windoes Server 2008 on a USB drive but cannot figure out how to get the server to rercognizee the drive. I am only in my second quarter so we have not really done any instalations yet, in fact this is the first quarter I am actually doing labs involving computer work.

Anyhow, What I really wnat to know is what am I doing wrong to not be able to install this OS, I have built allof my own PCs over the years and even the one I am on now is of my own design and making. I tried to hook it up to my network at home and it seems to try and contact the DNS but to no avail. It seems taht since ther eis no OS there is no driver for the USB ports so it cannot recognize this. I have the USB driver the ISO on  pluged into my computer and connected to the network, but the server does not seem to get tot he point where I can point it to the OS to install it.

The boot choices are hard drive, CD drive and NIC, ther eis a HBA installed with 6 Hard Drives attached yet I cannot get the OS to boot up.

Please help me understand where I am going wrong (short of using an outdated piece of hardware.).

Thank you

Baalinor

[Baalinor]

Okl I did some more work on the server and confirmed that it is actually a G4 Server which may help in that it is not so old, but still outdated.

Again, any suggestions and advice is greatly welcomed.

[Johan Guldmyr]

Hey, 

if the boot options don't include USB - then check out the BIOS of the server. Perhaps it needs to be enabled there. If not, then perhaps you need to install OS from a CD.. Or you could attempt to install it via PXE but that's perhaps a bit too advanced.

You'll need the driver for storage controller. to install to the hard drives. Google for "ML350 g4 drivers" and you'll end up at for example this link for 2008 x64 downloads.

For installing from CD there is the "HP SmartStart CD". In fact there is also the "HP Firmware Maintenance CD" that is probably a good idea to run, update BIOS and such. They've both been replaced with "HP SPP" these days but that's a DVD so won't work.

[Baalinor]

Thank you for the links, but right now I am getting a HBA low battery message. Having never built an actual server before, is the battery on the actual HBA board, or is it talking about the Bios battery? (might be an obvious question, but I have to ask to be sure) Anyway, if it is on the board, I take it that it is an easy fix, and probably should get the one for the bios since it has been sitting for a while.

Thanks again for the links and advice, but I cannot load any drivers untill I can get the  HBA active again.

[Johan Guldmyr]

Please take a picture of the error and upload it somewhere, I recommend http://imgur.com/

HBA is probably the SCSI HBA - this sits between the motherboard and the SCSI devices.

It's possible to have more than one controller/HBA, it is possible that your devices/disks are not connected to this SCSI HBA and that it is unused.

For diagnosing these server it's a good start to boot on the smartstart CD. It's also a good idea to upgrade firmware with the CD previously mentioned, this might be something that's fixed in a firmware update.

[Baalinor]

Thank you Johan, that is a l ot for me to digest, I will work on those things and then post my results later.  With school it may be a week or two before I get any results.

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

First check if the server actually supports USB Boot?

Second check if the server supports Windows 2008 OS?

http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/supportmatrix/windows.aspx

I have attached some images from ML350 G5, I could not find for G4 server.

F9 for bios setup during POST and see under Standard Boot Order (IPL) and System Options.

Legacy USB Disabled must NOT be chosen in RBSU (BIOS), instead choose USB Enabled.
When Legacy USB Disabled is selected, all USB ports are enabled under a USB-aware OS, but USB is not supported during POST or RBSU. Legacy USB Disabled also disables iLO 2 virtual devices.

USB Boot Support controls whether the system boots from USB devices connected to the server.
When disabled, this option also disables booting of iLO virtual media.
Options include:
• Enabled (default)
• Disabled


Booting from USB device:
Try with front and rear USB ports in the server.
Booting into a External USB hard drive may not be supported.
Avoid using USB hub while tring to boot.
Make sure USB key has bootable files.

Good Luck

Thank You!
I am a HP employee
__________________________________________
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[Baalinor]

Well HP Pro, I have been to all of the settings pages, including the ones you showed, thanks for the imnages. It is late, not sure what is going on, I cannot even get it to start to boot anything, I get a PXE-E61 Media test failure: heck cable. LOL also the batteries I bought did not help withthe low battery error, but maybe they jsut need to charge, not sure about that.

Just a bit of history,  these servers were discarded  by the company I work for, which they go tthem from a company that went bankrupt and we bought the office equipment. All the servers and computers were wiped, is that a possibility of a setting on the motherboard I need ot check?

 Also, I checked the link you provided, and acording to it, I cannot even find anything below a Gen 8, but I may need to look at it when i am not so tired, long day at work then math class, my brain hurts( Alg 2 and Trig)

Anyhow, one of the servers has 2 HBAs, with one hooked to 4 HD, and one hooked to two. I was thinking that maybe the  one hooked tot he 2 was for the OS the rest for storage.  Also, on that particular server, it does have a logical drive on it, can I install an OS on a logical drive or is taht jsut for storage? Should I delete the   logical drive, I have found the screen during post where I could.

So if anyone has a sugestion, I jsut want to get an OS installed on it. I even have an old copy of Vista, LOL I even tried making the  CD drive first in the boot order and put that in, no luck.  I jsut cannot get this to even start to allow me to install an OS, If I coudl get it to tell me that it cannot recognize the software, I can fix that, but I get no boot options at all.

Thaks for the help, hope we can get this thing working.

[waaronb]

I'm fairly sure the G4 models could boot off of a USB drive... I seem to remember doing that when I worked on them back circa 2007/2008.

And I also seem to remember being able to directly install Windows Server 2008 onto them without using the Smartstart CD... I think Server 2008 had drivers built in for the Smart Array 6i that typically came with G4 servers.  I dealt specifically with the DL models, not ML, but they probably hat the 6i built in... ?

A server like that probably does need new Smart Array batteries which I think you said you replaced.  The button battery on the motherboard is probably dead too... you'll know because if you remove power from the server for a day or so, it will lose it's time/date and all of the settings will be default.  G5 servers us a common 2032 button battery, not sure about the G4s.

You can find the Smartstart and Firmware CD's from the HP ftp site.  I actually still have some shortcuts to them:

Smartstart: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/cd/p1760479716/v71252/smartstart-8.70B-0-x64.zip

Firmware: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/cd/p1040529012/v71197/firmware-10.10-0.zip

I think those were the latest... Smartstart/Firmware CD's were replaced with the SPP DVD's a few years ago.

[Baalinor]

Thanks, downloading now.

I looked last night and when I went to the HP sote it did not list 2008 as an OS Option, though it could have been an old site.  My professs at school seems to thik there may be a BIOS password or a setrup Password, I am going to try and clear it tonight.

Though I did replace the batteries, I still get a low battery error, but I did not replace t he MB battery, I will get on tomorrow.

Thanks for the help, and ideas or sugestions, please post.

[Baalinor]

Johan, is it possible to place a DVD drive in this machine? I have 2 available.  Also, I cannot get the machine to accept any type of instalation option.  I have Server 2008 on a USB drive and cannot get an option to install an OS, nor can I get an option to install any drivers or update the firmware. I have not even been able to access a command line to try anything.

There were 2 logical drives on one of the serves and I deleted and recreated them, and I actuall only used 3 of the 4 for the one logical drive thinking that if I had an extra drive it might accept an OS but no luck.

I took some pictures but cannot get them off of my phone, I guess I need to e-mail them, LOL will do that tomorrow at work if it is slow and post them tomorrow.

So how exactly would I update the drivers  and possibly flash the BIOS?

Thanks for any help

[Johan Guldmyr]

"So how exactly would I update the drivers  and possibly flash the BIOS?"

The drivers are installed with the OS. To update the drivers are different between the OS. But with both 2k8 and 2k3 you can choose to load extra drivers during startup of the installation.

Flashing BIOS is done by booting on the smartstar CD.

[waaronb]

See my post above with links to the Smartstart and Firmware CDs.

If your server doesn't have a CD/DVD drive built in, you can either create a bootable USB flash drive with one of them, or I always used to keep a USB CD drive handy for things like that since not all of the servers come with a CD/DVD drive.

This is an old server and might not have full HP support for Server 2008 drivers so you may be at the mercy of whatever driver support comes with Server 2008 itself in some cases.

All I know is, if you're having trouble installing Windows on this server, you might want to practice installing Windows onto some easier systems first. If you have no experience installing it at all, trying to install a newer OS on an older Proliant with limited driver support and old hardware might be too much to start out with.

[Baalinor]

Waaronb,   I will admit I have limited experience with servers, I have however built several PCs for myself and never had a problem installing the client version of any Windows OS from Win 95 up. (Sorry I just aged myself) I have built a VM for the class I am taking with Server 2008 R2 and had no problems with that. I think the issue here might be when you mentioned a "Bootable" USB drive. I  think you may have hit the jackpot because I am not able to boot to anythin.  I downloaded both of your links the other night but have not had a chance to try use them.  I have Server 2008 on a USB drive, but not on a disk. I have a DVD drive in my PC I plan on taking out and puting into the Propiant Server. I will burn the OS to a DVD disk and try that.

HOw would I make a "bootable" file on a USB drive? It is probably something that is simple, however, I am not sure what steps I need to take to make one. Building a VM is quite easy, the OS installed aids in this, however, there is nothing on this machine and it fails to boot to any disk, so the key is just that, I need a bootable disk. If I burn the OS from my USB drive to a DVD disk, with that be automatically bootable? It would also be helpfull if you could provide a  link with instructions on making a bootable file on a USB drive.

I actually went to Microsoft's help site and tried to find a tutorial to make a bootable disk, however all I could find was making repair disks after the OS was already installed.  I need to make a fresh bootable disk.

Thank you for yor help

[Baalinor]

Johan, I got some images posted on Imgur, I think this woued be the link, http://imgur.com/a/n3ZZH#0 Though if not, my user name is Baalinor. 

I have done a few things over the past few weeks, but still no luck. I burned the IOS to a disk last night, tried using my DVD drive in the server but it recognizes taht it is there and  it powers up but it will not bppt from it. the only option in set up is boot from CD, no DVD.  If i had an IDE D VD drive would that  work because I am using a SATA drive and it says it is there, but it willnot even try and boot from it.

I also tried to boot from the NIC with the disk in the  drive of the computer I am using c onnected to  my network. I obviously am not doing things right.

Suggestions? Comments? Flames? Instruction?  Anything to help me get this thing working, LOL.

Thanks for any help.

[Johan Guldmyr]

BIOS is D19 02/15/2006. D19 is the ML350 G4p.

Perhaps the drivers you found were for the ML350 G4 and you need the ones for G4p.

http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdDetails/?sp4ts.oid=3279709&spf_p.tpst=swdMain&spf_p.prp_swdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3Didx%253D%257CswItem%253DMTX_3303ebe1dd234e1797ae1d0fc8%257CswEnvOID%253D%257CitemLocale%253D%257CswLang%253D%257Cmode%253D5%257Caction%253DdriverDocument&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignet...

There is a newer BIOS update for ML350 G4p (D19) BIOS that contains this fix: "Added support for Microsoft Windows 2008. This version of the System ROM is necessary to successfully install Microsoft Windows 2008 due to a previous issue that can cause server hang during the OS installation."

So next step: Boot on the Firmware Maintenance CD and upgrade everything. Booting from this CD was also previously suggested without any response from you. 

[Baalinor]

Thank yo for yor help Johan,  and yes, I do remember the sugestion for the maintenance CD,  however, I do not have one, and will look for it on the HP web site tonight when I get off of work. 

I actually have bo th servers, the G4 and the G4P, so it is obvious that I got the pictures confused,  however, I think if I get the G4P running the steps will be si milar withthe G4, just the proper drivers and firmware updates.

I assume that if I get the repair cd, it wi ll boot itself and intallation will be simple?  I ask this because I do not know.

Thank you for your help.

Baalinor

[waaronb]

Yeah, please try booting from the Firmware CD (10.10 was the last Firmware update CD that HP made before they switched to the SPP DVDs).

If you don't have a CD/DVD drive, there are some tutorials out there on the internet about how to burn an ISO image onto a USB drive to make it bootable.  I can't remember the steps off hand though... it's been a long time.  I think the HP drive key utility was capable of doing that, or if you have Linux installed anywhere there was some built-in utility that was capable of it.

[Baalinor]

Ok I downloaded the files you attached, the smart start and firmware, if I butn these to a disk, all I have is a DVD drive, right now  the server wil not boot the 08 disk I made, will it boot the firmware? or will it ignore it because  it is a dvd? Cannot try to night, I have a final tomorrow evening. I may try it tomorrow if the final is not too long.  We will have to wait and see what happens, Thanks for the help.

[waaronb]

Yeah, you need to make sure the system is setup to boot off the DVD drive.

Is this the internal DVD or CD drive that came with the system, or is this an external USB drive?  The BIOS settings will let you configure the boot order... I think I saw in the screenshots you sent earlier that it's set to boot off a USB key first, then CD ROM, then the hard drive.

If you weren't even able to boot the Windows Server 2008 CD, it may have been burned incorrectly?  Was this a downloaded ISO file from Microsoft, or a retail /MSDN copy?  Try booting it on another system that you know works correctly just to make sure (you could also use some advanced tools to see if the CD is setup to be bootable).  UltraISO, ISOBuster, or something like that can tell if it has boot info or not.

Not all ISO burning programs will write the boot info to the disc.  I always used to use Nero but I haven't had to burn a disc in years so I'm out of practice.

[Johan Guldmyr]

http://www.imgburn.com/ works great for burning images to discs.

[Baalinor]

I put the dvd disk in my computer and it tried to boot from the dvd, I did not hit any key because I saw no reason to , it tried to boot from there  Ifigured it was correct. There was an internal CD ROM drive in the box, I replaced it w ith a DVD Rom I had, but it wou dl nolt boot from there.   The image is a downloaded image from Dreamspark from school, I set it up as a virtual machine to do my labs, no problems there. I may need to jsut hit  a key and see if  windows starts to load the windows set up files.

Thanks Johan for the  l ink, I will check it out later or tomorrow.  the quarter is almost over, last week and I can work on this more.

I appreciate everyone's help and patience with me.

[Baalinor]

Waaronb,  I downloaded the firmware and burned it to a DVD disk. I tried to boot the G4 witht he disk in a dvd drive, but it wuld not boot to the firmware. There are some issues, I took pictures of the boot screens and the BIOS set up screens. they are here: http://imgur.com/a/MnMIU#0  I th ink I placed them in an order where I can ask questions in sequence.

The first 5 pictures are jsut boot sequences, can you  see anything in there I need to change?

in the 6th picture,  At the bottom, second line from the bottom, "PXE61: Media Test Failure, check cable"  waht exactly is this talking aobut? I have checked all  cabels and reseated every card in both serves and get the same error message on both.  Please any details about this is important I think.

The next pictuer i s of the  boot order. I have the CD-ROM first. I bought a SATA/IDE adapter for my DVD Drive because the G4 does not have a SATA plug on the MB. I burned the firmware to DVD disk, however it will not boot to the  firmware.  What do I need to do?

The next pictuer is of the  bood controller sequence. How is that suposed to be set up?  Does it really matter?

The next picture is the same, but the last one is of the BIOS Serial Console and EMS. What do I need to do with these?

I have never flashed a BIOS before, Please tell me what to do.

I have asked one of the teachers for help, all I get from him is requests to give him the two servers, not sure I trust him.  I  figure  it this way, if I can get these servers working, it is a good start on a new career, maybe not thought he way it has gone so far.

Again, any advice is greatly appreciated.