PowerEdge 4400 Booting Problem-Please Help!

Thanks for your reply, the person that I bought this server from told me that It was working before he close his business 2 years ago, the server has been sitting down in his garage for 2 years.

I am pretty positive that there is win 2000 server installed on Raid mode, but how can I make it works? is replacing the CMOS battery fix the problem?

I have been trying to go to Utlity Mode by pushing F10 when the server starts up, but it did not find any utility partition either.

I tried to do CTRL-A but it did not work either.

I pushed the CTRL-A when i was booting it, but it did not do anything! also pushed F10 to go to utility mode, which did not work either, and it goes to the screen that I posted earlier. So, i'm going to replace the CMOS battery  and will keep you posted. 

Do you have anything on the hard drives?  If not, it won't boot to them.

Are you trying to use the RAID controller?  If so, every time the CMOS/NVRAM battery goes out, the BIOS will revert to defaults, which means the RAID controller will get turned off (BIOS F2, Integrated Devices).  If you have a bootable OS on these drives having been installed in RAID mode, then they likewise will not boot.

If you go into CTRL-A, do you see your drives in Disk Utilities?  If not, are they for sure connected to the controller (cable from backplane to controller)?

The F10 prompt is always there, but it doesn't always work, because it has to be "installed" to the hard drive when the OS is installed using the Dell installation utility.  If it is not, then it will not be available.

Keep us posted.

If it was installed in RAID mode, then you have to change it to RAID mode to boot to it ... if the battery is no good, then there is no way to change to RAID mode and have it stay. 

What do you mean by "I tried to do CTRL-A but it did not work either"?  It did nothing when you pressed CTRL-A?  You could not see the drives in CTRL-A?  or you could not boot after going to CTRL-A?

I think you need to start by replacing the CMOS battery, as it is evident you won't get anywhere until you do.  It is a standard coin battery that you should be able to get at nearly any PC/electronic (even Walmart) store.

I put the new battery in and i still have the same problem, should i install any bios updates, etc? please help... 

No i dont get any message about losing data, let me check those links and I'll keep you posted about the status of the server.

Thanks so much for all your help.

Good luck.

I wouldn't do any updates until it is working normally.

With the new battery, you should at least be able to change to RAID mode in the BIOS (Integrated Devices) and have it stay ... can you (you will get a scary message about data loss)?

If not, then you may need to try a few things:

Reseat the RAID components (key, memory, battery).
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe4400/en/it/system.htm#activating_the_integrated_raid_controller

Clear the NVRAM using the motherboard jumpers.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe4400/en/it/jumpers.h tm#jumpers_and_switches

Yes ... set the jumpers to CLR, then boot up (you'll probably see a message about it when the system first comes on), then power down, set to original location/position, then boot up normally.

I did reseat the Raid component as it says in this link, I took off the raid component and put it back I also took off the batter connector to mother board and put it back to make sure its reset.

Reseat the RAID components (key, memory, battery).

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe4400/en/it/system.htm#activating_the_integrated_raid_controller

Do i have to switch the jumpers to clean NVRAM and boot the machine or just switch it to clear NVRAM and then switch it back to the its position and boot?

I'm not sure about this part, can you please help.

Clear the NVRAM using the motherboard jumpers.

Where are the two jumpers located (picture possible?)? 

One jumper may be hanging off of a single pin (I.e. it is not "jumpering" anything) ... that one can be used.  Otherwise, you can simply take the Password jumper off and jumper the NVRAM pins, boot up, then put it back on the Password pins, then boot up again.

According to 

there are 2 jumpers on the board, do i have to take both of them out in order and them re-boot in order to clear and then put them back? Sorry its a lit bit confusing the way it's explanied

ok ... cool :)