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3146
November 8th, 2021 19:00
Dell R720 booting from USB failing and instead getting RAID controller configuration
Hi there,
Any words of wisdom on how to boot on a USB drive. I have a poweredge R720. When I press F2 or F11 I see the error after the Raid controller is seen "All the disks from the previous configuration are gone... Press any key to continue or 'C' to load the configuration utility." And then I pressed a key and the next error message is "There are offline or missing virtual drivers with preserved cache. Please check the cables and ensure that all drives are present. Press any key to enter the configuration utility". I press any key and I enter the RAID controller configuration utility. What is the best way to go forward here? I am trying to install TrueNAS on a USB drive. The USB drive is an HDD caddy that fits in the CDROM slot. Any assistance is appreciated. Cheers
DELL-Shine K
4 Operator
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3K Posts
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November 9th, 2021 00:00
From the messages it is looking like the hard drives which were part of the virtual disk are not available now and controller have some preserved cache. Did you removed any drives from the server?
For more details on Managing preserved cache you can refer below link (Managing Preserved Cache section on page 48)
https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/rc_h310_h710_h710p_h810_ug_en-us.pdf
djnoah
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November 9th, 2021 11:00
This is a machine I just inherited so new drives. I am told my drives are incompatible with the h710 RAID controller. How can I know if the ST16000NM001G drives are compatible with the controller? Drive specs are: Seagate 16TB HDD Exos X16 7200 RPM 512e/4Kn SATA 6Gb/s 256MB Cache 3.5-Inch Enterprise Hard Drive (ST16000NM001G)
DELL-Chris H
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9.6K Posts
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November 9th, 2021 12:00
Djnoah,
I wouldn't say incompatible per se, as they do have the same connections. I would say they're unsupported/noncertified to use with the Poweredge systems, now that doesn't mean they definitely won't work, just that we don't guarantee there functionality (if any). So what you can try is to make sure the server is up to date on BIOS, iDrac, H710, etc. and then see how the drives respond.
Now on a side note, if the server is several updates back from current on bios or idrac then you will need to walk them to current together, you don't want to just jump to the most current. The reason being is jumping too many updates, or allow the bios and idrac to get too far apart, can cause damage to the server.
Let me know how it goes.