how do i get these servers going?

Aeridyne

Senior member
Nov 25, 2004
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ok i have some have some compaq 5500s, ibm netfinity 4500s, some dell poweredge 4300, 4400 and 4500s too. I dont know how to get these buggers running. They have hard drives in them, but i dont know if they are configured and i am pretty sure they have been wiped. Are there any special utilities or anything. I can build a pc blindfolded, but i have zero knowledge of raid (other than what the types are and how each works in theory) or scsi or servers in general. I know that they all worked before they wiped the drives. Also i have a compaq dl580 that i think has a bad controller in it, can i switch out the controller card from another one, or put a regular pci scsi card in there to run the hard drives on that one? I confess to being a total noob on servers and i need all the help i can get...
 

exorr

Senior member
Jul 22, 2001
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Wow, quite an open ended question :)

Compaq - You need the SmartStart CD's which can guide you through the setup process. Link

IBM - I don't have a lot of experience with IBM servers except for knowing they are the worst of the bunch (between HP, Dell, and IBM). Maybe this can help.

Dell - Go to this page and do a search for the server you need to download drivers and management tools for.

You can use the same SmartStart CD for the DL580. If you have a bad Array Controller you can swap it out with a good one from another server. You can use a PCI SCSI controller if that's all you have...

In the end, an install is identical to installing Windows on a standard desktop. Try booting the servers with a Windows 2003 disk in them and see if they can install. If they are having problems booting, detecting HD's, etc then there's some hardware issues. The SmartStart MAY help with these as it can update all the BIOS/Firmware for the devices and sometimes this can fix weird issues.

Ethan
 

Aeridyne

Senior member
Nov 25, 2004
242
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71
sounds like a great place to start, thank you very much exorr

on hp's site it asks me whether i have a regular, G2, G3, or G4 server for the proliants.... I dunno, how do i tell?