USB as a Main Storage device
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Maybe the power company sent bad power to that one machine, and now it's a paperweight. That would be my first guess. Don't listen to any of the nonsense coming from the "IT experts".
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So you think that the R510 is bricked?
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In order to setup the RAID on the R510, you should get a screen like below and hit Control-R to go into the RAID configuration portion of the BIOS (it's the firmware of the RAID controller, in reality.)
http://www.datacenterins.com/2013/07/how-to-configure-hardware-raid-on-dell.html
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vXRm_GCGmlM/UdZVpMvFdZI/AAAAAAAAAE0/xAPJoIfNCl4/s1374/1.png
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To use a single drive as a single drive on a hardware RAID controller what you do is add it to a one drive RAID 0 set. Seems strange, but that is the only way to designate a single drive as a RAID in a RAID controller.
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@scottalanmiller Will do in the morning.
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@scottalanmiller Got the server correctly interfacing with the drive in RAID0, and apparently why it refused to work with the USB's and the BIOS was messing up, was apparently that it was trying to flash itself from the second one, while using the first as boot media? I don't know, but it was probably my fault. Now, though, that the HDD has been set up, it isn't recognizing the USB as boot media. Any suggestions? I don't know my way around servers really all that well, plain and simple.
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@Mike-Ralston You may find an option in the bios that enables or disables boot from USB. Should be somewhere in the boot settings menu.
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@coliver It recognized it as a boot device, all the way up to getting the HDD setup.
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@Mike-Ralston said:
@scottalanmiller Got the server correctly interfacing with the drive in RAID0, and apparently why it refused to work with the USB's and the BIOS was messing up, was apparently that it was trying to flash itself from the second one, while using the first as boot media? I don't know, but it was probably my fault. Now, though, that the HDD has been set up, it isn't recognizing the USB as boot media. Any suggestions? I don't know my way around servers really all that well, plain and simple.
Don't start thinking of it as a server. It is a PC just like any PC. All PCs are the same. It has a BIOS, it has drive(s), it has USB ports. For all intents and purposes, it is a desktop. There is nothing on your end that makes it behave differently because it is a server. Server vs. desktop is a human naming concept, not a technical one.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Mike-Ralston said:
@scottalanmiller Got the server correctly interfacing with the drive in RAID0, and apparently why it refused to work with the USB's and the BIOS was messing up, was apparently that it was trying to flash itself from the second one, while using the first as boot media? I don't know, but it was probably my fault. Now, though, that the HDD has been set up, it isn't recognizing the USB as boot media. Any suggestions? I don't know my way around servers really all that well, plain and simple.
Don't start thinking of it as a server. It is a PC just like any PC. All PCs are the same. It has a BIOS, it has drive(s), it has USB ports. For all intents and purposes, it is a desktop. There is nothing on your end that makes it behave differently because it is a server. Server vs. desktop is a human naming concept, not a technical one.
But the BIOS is all wonky, there's a ton of different levels of nonsensical text, and configuration menus that have nothing to do with their nomenclature.
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@Mike-Ralston That doesn't sound right... could you post a picture or something with the nonsensical text? If it is gibberish or something else then your BIOS may be corrupt, although didn't you try to flash it earlier in this thread?
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@Mike-Ralston said:
But the BIOS is all wonky, there's a ton of different levels of nonsensical text, and configuration menus that have nothing to do with their nomenclature.
That may be, but that's just a bad BIOS design, could happen anywhere, if that is the case.
So we had it booting to USB previously, correct? Did we have to do anything to get that to work before? What was just done that got us back to the working state that we have now? Last I knew the BIOS was hosed and you could not get into it. Has it been reset?
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According to this site, the boot from USB option only exists after the USB boot device is plugged in:
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/956/t/19398864
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@coliver said:
@Mike-Ralston That doesn't sound right... could you post a picture or something with the nonsensical text? If it is gibberish or something else then your BIOS may be corrupt, although didn't you try to flash it earlier in this thread?
I don't mean it in a way that it's just gibberish, it looks exactly as a BIOS should, but that the text means nothing in relation to what I'm doing. Just confusing design and pathways to options. @scottalanmiller All I had to do to make BIOS work is unplug the USB that we were trying to install to, the blank one. It was apparently trying to use that to flash itself, but it's all working now. After that step, it still detected the other USB (the boot media one). Then I went into the RAID Configuration Utility, and setup the RAID config that you told me to. Then, I rebooted, and went to boot from the USB, and install on the Hard Drive. Now, it isn't recognizing the USB. I've tried several reboots with no luck.
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Define not recognizing the USB. Does it give you boot options and the USB is not one of them? If you go into the BIOS now with the USB plugged in, is there an option to boot from it? Any boot options at all?
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I saw in one discussion thread that the R510 had an issue where it would not boot to the device reliably. Try several reboots, including a cold off and back on boot. It may be simply that it is not detecting it every time. I've dealt with that kind of issue a surprising amount and in a case like this, all we have to do is get through the install once and we are golden because we don't need to USB boot again since we have the drive in there now.
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But you will want to make sure either way that the USB is the first boot device in the boot order in the BIOS.
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@scottalanmiller It gives me boot options, just the USB is not one of them. I'll try several reboots, including a power flush.
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@Mike-Ralston said:
@scottalanmiller It gives me boot options, just the USB is not one of them. I'll try several reboots, including a power flush.
Okay so we have the right menu. Maybe try a different USB port.
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Did it work using different USB ports? Haven't heard back so we assume that it is working? What's the status?
