Setting up old prolient Servers

[mpociask]

I bought a couple of old prolient servers (one is 3000 and one is a 5500). They have dual pentium III 550mhz processors.

They both came without hard drives (SCSI) and not configured. I bought 3 hard drives for the 5500 and am trying to get the server to run so I can install my operating system.

Right now, when I boot, it checks the RAM and says:

Slot 7 COMPAQ Smart Array 3200 Controller - 0 Logical Drives

1785 - Slot 7 drives array not configured. Run COMPAQ Array Configuration Utitilty

Scanning for the SCSI Devices... No SCSI devices detected.

F1 key to continue
F10 key for system partition utilities

If I press F10, I get

System Disk Error or Non system disk. Replace disk and press Enter

If I put the Smart Start 5.5 disk in the CDROM and press F1 I get:

SmartStart does not support deployment for this server. Consult the support matrix on the Smart Start website at

http://www.hp.com/servers/smartstart

for a complete list of supported servers.

What do I need to do to get this thing going?

 

[hiwayman1]

Have you tried using floppy disks made with the Smartstart 5.5 CD? I have 3 proliant 3000's one ran of the 5.5 cd with no problem. One would not run off the 5.5 or 4.8 . I made floppies with the 5.5 cd and the install went ok. I do not know what the difference is, or if there is some hardware in one of the units that may be older?

 

[newBPhoneGuy]

have you tried using the older version for the erase and the 5.5 for the configuring. not sure if that will work or not havent tried it

 

[DaveFarquhar]

It's been a while since I worked on a 5500, but I believe Compaq servers of that vintage won't boot off the Smart Start 5.5 CDs, but they will boot off floppies made from the CDs.

newBPhoneGuy's suggestion of running a system erase with an older version (anything 4.9 or older should do), making floppies from 5.5, and running 5.5 to configure ought to help. I did that once to get an older Compaq server running again.

Dave Farquhar

http://dfarq.homeip.net