Poweredge 2400 Problems

Question

I have a Poweredge 2400 that I want to install Windows 2000 Server on.  When I boot up the machine I see 'Press F2 = Setup','F10 = Uitlity Mode'.  Everytime I try to press for one of these options, it will say 'entering setup', or 'Entering Utilility mode', but It will never actually enter.  What happens is the boot process continues, showing the scsi ids and their drive respectivly and then a cusor blinks at the end of the page.    If I put a windows 2000 disk into the drive, at the end of the page it says 'A bootable cd-rom is detected in your cd-rom drive'  and under that it says 'The boot sections on your bootable cd-rom are: 0. Default Entry.  No matter what I press nothing will happen.   I do not have the Dell open manage server assistant cd for this system.  I have tried to locate it, but to no avail.  I believe I have one for the SC430, but I dobut that will do any good.  Anyway, I am at a stand still and would appreciate any tips, hints, tricks, unrelated information, weather reports, Stock quotes, sports scores, WHATEVER!  As you can see I am frustrated.   Thanks in advance,   Jonathan

jk358 · Answer

OK, I unplugged the powercable going to the backplane, and I am able to get a dos bootdisk to give me a A: prompt.  I was also, able to get into bios, with the powercable unplugged.  I still can not get into utility mode.  When I plug the backplane back up, It goes back to the same state.    I know it seems the backplane must be bad, but it detects all the hard drives correctly, as well as the cd rom drive.  One last note, after unplugging the power, and plugging back in I got this message:   '!!!!****Warning: Firmware is out of date, please update****!!!   I downloaded the latest firmware, but if the backplane is plugged up, the machine will not boot to floppy, even though it is set that way in the bios.  I ran the update without the backplane but it still gets the same error.    Comments, questions, criticism, appreciated!   Thanks,   Jonathan

jk358 · Answer

OK,  I have 3 poweredge 2400 servers.  One poweredge, goes through the normal boot process and at the end, I get a message to 'F1 to retry boot, F2 to enter setup'.  On this machine I can begin windows install with no problems.   On the other 2 2400's, They go through the normal boot process, but at the end they stop just before getting to the F1 or F2 message.  They all have the same specs, but 2 of them will not enter setup, or bios.  I have even tried taking the drives with a Clean windows install on them and putting them in one of the machines that will not cooperate, but they still will not go any further.     This is frustrating, any help is appreciated.   Jonathan Message Edited by jk358 on 05-02-2005 10:18 AM

jk358 · Answer

I had this posted in another forum, If it sounds familiar and you are looking for a resolutin here it is: http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=pes_other&message.id=12923

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Poweredge 2400 Problems

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