Reviving a Proliant DL360 G7 (Complete Rookie)

[JHART77]

 Im trying to get an old DL360 G7 i purchased back to life for personal home use/learning. Ive managed to get the memory errors fixed and a RAID 1+0 volume setup successfully. She boots ok now and thats where im stuck. 

I need some help getting everything updated and current so i can get an OS loaded (CentOS). Ive downloaded the recamended firmware, SPP, smartcd and anything else i thought would help but cant seem to get anything to load. Following the steps for each and burning to disk/usb the server either boots to GRUB only or errors. 

Some software it seems i have to purchase or maybe im looking in the wrong places?

Just need some one to point me in the right direction. Im a quick learner but sometimes i need pretty pictures drawn out for me lol.

[Torsten.]

This could be helpful:

https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=55506

[JHART77]

Thanks for the reply!

This is helpful and im aware of the page, but ....

"To start with I will assume that you have installed CentOS 7.x and have a working network connection with internet access."

...have not got that far yet due to original posts problems. Without updating firmware/bios etc first i feel im wasting my time trying to get Centos installed yet. 

[Torsten.]

I assume you can install CentOS 7.x directly from an install media and get it up and running.

Then you can follow the instructions above to adjust the HPE tools etc ... and care about firmware.

Do you have a current SPP?

If yes, boot from and do an offline firmware update.

[JHART77]

Not yet, ive downloaed the SPP but fail at getting it intslled. Also i have not got Centos installed. 

Im not sure exactly if im not installing the media correctly by burning it to cd? Ive tried USB as well.

[Torsten.]

 SPP 2016.10?

Open the ISO and get the HPUSBKey Utility. Run it and install SPP on an USB thumb drive.

Then boot from and update the servers firmware.

Regarding the OS:

https://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks