USB as a Main Storage device
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@coliver said:
@Mike-Ralston said:
@scottalanmiller Still constantly restarting it, still no luck. Also, been working on getting my work PC configured again, as it died.
Did you ever get that single drive working? The small SAS Drive that you were going to try?
I think that he did, but the booting to USB isn't working anymore.
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@Mike-Ralston said:
@scottalanmiller Still constantly restarting it, still no luck. Also, been working on getting my work PC configured again, as it died.
So that is a "yes" that you have tried lots of different USB sockets? You are sure that the USB stick that you are using is definitely the one with a healthy boot image on it?
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Try booting a normal PC with that boot image.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Try booting a normal PC with that boot image.
Doing that now. And yes, I tried every USB port on the server.
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okay cool, if the PC works at least it will tell us something.
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@scottalanmiller Sorry about the long delay, but yes, it worked flawlessly on the PC.
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Okay, so we know that we have a good USB stick. So something is wrong in getting the R510 to boot to USB. But we know that it was booting previously because you got to the XenServer menu. And we can't boot to DVD because we don't have one.
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@scottalanmiller Correct. Shall I try a different USB stick for the heck of it? I have USB set to boot device #1, so it isn't that... Is there something else I'm missing in BIOS? Did I format the USB wrong for the server, but it still works on a PC?
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The server is still a PC. The format would be the same. It's a PC server. There are reports of boot issues with that server. Have we tried updating the firmware yet?
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@Mike-Ralston said:
@scottalanmiller Correct. Shall I try a different USB stick for the heck of it? I have USB set to boot device #1, so it isn't that... Is there something else I'm missing in BIOS? Did I format the USB wrong for the server, but it still works on a PC?
It worked before.. so what changed?
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@Dashrender said:
@Mike-Ralston said:
@scottalanmiller Correct. Shall I try a different USB stick for the heck of it? I have USB set to boot device #1, so it isn't that... Is there something else I'm missing in BIOS? Did I format the USB wrong for the server, but it still works on a PC?
It worked before.. so what changed?
I set up a Raid Array.
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@scottalanmiller said:
The server is still a PC. The format would be the same. It's a PC server. There are reports of boot issues with that server. Have we tried updating the firmware yet?
No, I haven't. How would I go about doing that the CORRECT way? (Done it before but it was via a USB).
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@Mike-Ralston said:
No, I haven't. How would I go about doing that the CORRECT way? (Done it before but it was via a USB).
USB is the correct way. Only way we have given that we don't have an OS installed and no floppy or DVD drive. Dell should have a download of the latest firmware for that system on their site with instructions.
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@scottalanmiller Alright, I'll do that right now.
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Cool, that often solves these kinds of problems.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Cool, that often solves these kinds of problems.
So how does updating the BIOS work? The file I got was a .exe extension, but I assume that's not an issue... But I don't see any options for installing it.
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Sometimes there is an ISO to make a CD from, use the Windows 7 to USB utility to see if you can make a bootable USB drive from the ISO (warning it might not work, some ISOs are different format).
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@Mike-Ralston said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Cool, that often solves these kinds of problems.
So how does updating the BIOS work? The file I got was a .exe extension, but I assume that's not an issue... But I don't see any options for installing it.
.exe is a Windows file. Windows only. It cannot be used elsewhere.
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From what I remember some of those BIOS upgrades need to be run from a DOS bootable USB drive. You might be able to use something like BartPE to do it.
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Here are the instructions from the Dell BIOS Download page:
File Format:Non-Packaged
File Name:PER510-011200C.exe
Download Type:HTTP
File Size: 1MB
Format DescriptionThis file format consists of a BIOS-executable file. To use it, download the file and copy it to a DOS-bootable USB flash drive, then boot the system to the USB flash drive and run the program.
