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February 24th, 2015 18:00
PowerEdge 2850 will not boot from CD drive
Hello,
I have a PowerEdge 2850 server, loaded with 6 1GB sticks of RAM, 2 CPU's purchased used, with a floppy drive and CD/DVD drive.
After starting the server and configuring the RAID, having loaded 6 146GB drives, it finished going through the boot-up, and failed to boot, saying
"No boot device available, press F1 to continue or F2 to enter Setup"
I've tried 2 different hardware CD/DVD drives, double and triple checked that the drive is seated, and tried multiple discs that I know are bootable discs, the primary one being the Dell Server Setup and Configuration DVD.
The DRAC is configured and upon startup during the rest of the display messages it displays
"Drive 0 VIRTUAL FLOPPY
"Drive 1 VIRTUAL CDROM
Those may not be exact, but, the messages indicate that it should see the hardware unless I am understanding it wrong.
I cannot figure out what else to do to make this boot from the CD. The drive light flashes on and off during the whole boot process.
Thanks in advance.
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glen4cindy
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February 24th, 2015 20:00
Hello,
Yes, the drive is enabled in BIOS with a check mark and first in boot order.
It is the Dell M1687 Slimline DVD-ROM drive and was in the server when it arrived. I have a 2nd server with an identical drive that works. Can't figure out why this one will not.
I am trying to boot to The Dell Systems Management Tools and Documentation DVD.
It does boot in the other server but, I want to get this one up and running too.
Thanks again.
theflash1932
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February 24th, 2015 20:00
The VIRTUAL drives are different - they are referencing "virtual" media mounted in the DRAC console.
What media are you attempting to boot to?
Do you have a DVD drive or a CD drive (DVD was NOT standard on 28x0's).
Have you checked the BIOS to make sure the optical drive is enabled AND at the top of the boot order (and enabled with a checkmark)?
theflash1932
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February 24th, 2015 21:00
Easiest solution? Swap the drive with the one from the other system. Sounds like your drive is bad.
glen4cindy
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February 25th, 2015 04:00
That was my first go at a solution. Known good drive. Still didn't work.
That's what is so puzzling.
theflash1932
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February 25th, 2015 20:00
Did you swap just the drive or the whole carrier/caddy? May be a bad connector on the backplane or caddy or the ribbon. Are you booting SMTD to install an OS? If so, which one? You could boot to USB to install. (SMTD can technically be prepared for USB, but it is a pain and must be done from a Linux box.)