Compaq Proliant DL380 G1 Server & W2k3 SBS 1

[hughejars]

Hi all
Sorry if I'm going over old ground here, but I'm having trouble breathing life back into my server. I've read all the forums you've been posting in the past, and amazing myself how in this hi tech age we still cant get a system to boot str8 out the box.
Anyway the problem goes, non system disk error when you boot the DL380
So convention says download the SmartStart and burn a CD, all done, except the server won't boot from the cd or any floppy you create from it.
One message I saw says reset the "maintenance dip switch" and the system will boot from CD, can anyone guide me to this switch as I dont have the manuals to this server.
I'd be grateful to any help and please hurry, I'm down to my last few strands of hair.
Cheers
Phil aka hughejars

 

[TheLad]

To be honest, I have used quite a few different Compaq/HP brands of Proliant server and I have not experienced the sorts of problems you appear to be having - I have had a few keyboard/seat moments but nothing I couldn't resolve. I have used the later generations of DL380 (not G1) and they work fine, but I guess that doesn't help you much.

The DL320/DL360 as a small server works well as it allows you a perfectly acceptable way of hosting an application for a small cost. The DL380 as a mid-range server works well from a cost and maintenance point of view and also allows for future expansion. The DL530 works well as a high-end server. What server you pick is dependant on the resources you need it for.

In my opinion, you would be better going for the DL360 rather than the DL320 as it offers two SCSI disks which can be hardware mirrored.

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"Insert funny comment in here!"
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[blister911]

If you go with a SAS model of a DL360 you can put 4 drives in it.

 

[hughejars]

Sounds better Blister, I would still rather use RAID5 across the disks.

http://www.furnessonline.com

- nothing there yet so give me a few weeks to get something together. This ASP.NET looks like fun.

 

[hughejars]

.....unless the DL320 can run an external array?

http://www.furnessonline.com

- nothing there yet so give me a few weeks to get something together. This ASP.NET looks like fun.

 

[TheLad]

You can fit 6 SAS drives into the newer DL360 servers if you have the right cage fitted.

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"Insert funny comment in here!"
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[tf1]

If you really want loads of storage in a single rack mount server solution, go for the new ML370G5RM and add the second drive cage. It will take 16 drives and two array controllers.

If it has to be powerful, then use dual Quad-core Xeons and the second memory bank option to give you quad-interleaved memory. I promise you it is fast.

It may use 5u rack space, but with that power and capacity, it is still good.


Regards: tf1

 

[hughejars]

Well I finally got MS-DOS at least to load to this system. Next stage is trying to load the cd-rom drivers. I've been trying to use the MSCDEX.EXE file but without success, can anyone remember or know what you type on the command line? and if I need a certain .sys file?
MSCDEX [/E/K/S/V] [/D:<driver> .... blah blah blah
i've got the oakcdrom.sys, the cdrom.sys & atapi.sys files but i keep getting "no valid device drivers selected"
Come on guys I'm within a gnats breath....
Cheers
Phil

http://www.furnessonline.com

- nothing there yet so give me a few weeks to get something together. This ASP.NET looks like fun.

 

[hughejars]

Ok fella's don't worry I got it, Now I gotta remember how to use FDISK again!!!

http://www.furnessonline.com

- nothing there yet so give me a few weeks to get something together. This ASP.NET looks like fun.

 

[hughejars]

F I N A L L Y !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Got the system back to Windows 2000

Now to try and upgrade 20 W2K3

Fingers x'd

http://www.furnessonline.com

- nothing there yet so give me a few weeks to get something together. This ASP.NET looks like fun.

 

[hughejars]

S U C C E S S ! ! ! ! !

OK, heres what I've gone through.
- Download SmartStart 5.5 (I'm still laughing)
- Prepare a System Erase Floppy
- Boot the system with the floppy in.
- remove the floppy and restart with SMartStart in the CD-rom
- Let SmartStart take you through the ACU (Assisted Configuration Utility) and set up your hard drives.
- Boot MS-DOS (because I couldnt get any other OS CD to boot from the CD-ROM)
- Find a spare CD-ROM and install it(I had a HP CD-rewriter lying around) and download and install HP's CD-ROM support pack SP2948, copy it to the DOS partition and run it with a floppy in drive A, it does the rest.
- Run FDISK and create an extended partition to load you OS to, otherwise W2K tells you theres not enough space.
- Now I can boot to DOS at least and load up my operating system.
- Because W2K3 dosen't boot from DOS, I loaded W2K 1st
- .....and because W2K3 dosen't boot from W2K, you have to reboot your machine to W2K and press F8 at the start, enter SAFEMODE with COMMAND PROMPT
- cd\i386
- winnt32.exe
- A message will appear that you can't upgrade, but don't worry just keep going and it will start the install process.

I know this is long winded and my hard drives are a mess of DOS and NTFS partitions, but for me it was the only way.

Thanks for all the help guys.

Phil

http://www.furnessonline.com

- nothing there yet so give me a few weeks to get something together. This ASP.NET looks like fun.

 

[blister911]

Phil,
Glad to hear you got it running.

 

[hughejars]

Oh before you load MS-Dos load the system configuration tools.

http://www.furnessonline.com

- nothing there yet so give me a few weeks to get something together. This ASP.NET looks like fun.

 

[MrPatRyan]

hughejars,

It looks like I'm going to have to buy a floppy drive to get Server 2003 installed on my dl380 G1?
You say "Prepare a System Erase Floppy, Boot the system with the floppy in". I bought this thing used on Craig's list for $60 and now I feel I have overpaid. It did already have Windows Server 2003 on it but with an unknown login. I don't know the history of this box but it looks like it might be more trouble than it's worth. Funny that it will try to boot from a VMware ESX install disk (which eventually fails) but doesn't recognize a Windows CD. Also won't recognize SmartStart 5.5 CD.

 

[burtsbees]

I have a few utilities that can crack the username/passwords, if you want. Let me know. Does the server have a floppy drive? If not, I have a cd that will do the trick (usually better, too), and it is bootable. They are on my FTP server, and I can email you the address if you want. Like I say, let me know.

Burt

 

[MrPatRyan]

Hi Burt -- unfortunatly I messed with and reset the disk partitions which wiped clean the W2003 that was already there. I was confident I would be able install a fresh OS (before I read this thread and got an idea of what a challenge I faced!) Wish I would have known about the PW crack before that, oh well.

 

[MrPatRyan]

It turns out the brand of blank CD I used to create SmartStart was faulty. By suggestion on another thread here I used ImagBurn to verify the CD I created against the original SmartStart.ISO and there were errors. Funny becuase my home PC would try to boot from the SS CD, but my DL380 is to fussy and requires a perfect copy, which it should I suppose. So I bought some Memorex brand blank CD's and my dl380 is now booting with SmartStart 5.5. Thanks to all who have replied here, I did learn alot even though the problem was a bad CD copy.