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PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 8:57 pm 
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Howdy,

I am not a complete newbie to WHS, having built a couple of home brew servers back to when WHS was being beta tested. But my knowledge of WHS is not enough to help me fix a friends HP Ex485, which quit working recently.

My first thought was to use the recessed button on the front of the Ex485 at boot-up, and what this told me was there was a BIOS error (three red blinks). My hope was that the motherboard battery was just dead; so I replaced it, but unfortunately, still could not get the server to boot.

I then bought the VOV monitor/keyboard/mouse adapter cable for the Ex485, so now I can see the boot up process...but it's completely different from my home brew servers. I have the jumper on JP1, so now I can navigate all around the BIOS settings, and everythging looks fine. Yet, everytime I re-boot the server, it goes straight into the recovery mode and boots up from the BIOS.

Assuming it might be a bad system drive, I bought a new HDD and tried to do a complete Factory Re-installation using the 3.0 Server Recovery Disc. The server recovery disk (in a remote PC) finds the server and the recovery process seems to go well, but on re-boot, the connector software (at the end of the re-installation process) cannot find the server. The server appears to just keep going straight into the BIOS boot-up process.

I also tried putting the (new and original) hard drives in an external USB drive enclosure, and ran check disk on them. They both appear fine and do have an OS on them, so I'm baffled.

One more clue...on my router, I can find the server...using the name “minint-e9avc42”.

So before I do anything more rash, I thought I would see what yall suggested...

Your assistance is much-appreciated!


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 10:53 pm 
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Have you looked at the boot sequence, the EX485 somehow gets the boot sequence messed up. I have found that on several EX485's that were supposedly dead (wouldn't boot). I usually disable smi boot and load whs 2011 on them and they function quite well. I really haven't tried to fix the boot sequence, but I'm sure it's doable.

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HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2011 12:35 am 
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I will check that. Thank you!

I did notice the boot sequence, but assumed it was correct.

I'll let you know...

Thanks again for the suggestion!


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2011 10:24 am 
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You should definitely be able to change the boot order. While I've not changed the boot order on either my EX490 or EX487, the SMI boot is definitely in the list and, if for some reason it winds up as the first boot device, the server will ALWAYS boot there because it's always present.

Most modern BIOSes nowadays give you the option to boot from an alternate boot device during POST, allowing you to boot from a DVD, for example, as a one-time deal, rather than editing the boot order to move the DVD drive to the top of the list.

BIOS will iterate through the boot order searching for a bootable device, starting at the first one. If no suitable boot loader is detected, it'll move on to the second one in the list, and then to the third one and so on. A common boot order is floppy, DVD then hard drive. Since all of my computers have a boot order override during POST, I set the hard drive to the first device so that the computer doesn't waste time trying devices I normally won't want it to try.

In the case of the SMI, if that gets to the top of the list, your server is "dead" until you either disable it or move it further down in the boot order. Having the debug cable certainly makes fixing this a breeze! (And if you don't have a debug cable, there is no practical way to fix the boot order. So a debug cable is an absolute must in anyone's MediaSmart Server arsenal!)

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Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2011 6:12 pm 
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So here's the follow-up:

This was in-fact a "boot-order" problem.

My thinking goes like this... The battery on the motherboard was either too weak (or dead). So when a power failure happened (even though one wasn't reported to me) and the server got re-booted, the CMOS/BIOS boot order was somehow randomly re-ordered. The SMI boot device was moved up to the first position...and as yall suggested, this is why I was stuck in the recovery boot mode.

Without the VOV keyboard and monitor adapter, I would've been dead in the water! I wonder how many of these have occured...?

I reset the first boot device to the hard drive, and the server is booting from the hard drive just fine.

One odd thing that I have noticed, apparently you MUST complete the server Restore or Factory ReInstallation process from the reinstallation DVD, or the final steps to initialize the installation doesn't get completed. In my case, it looks like a completed install through the monitor/keyboard adapter, but the connector software is not available through the HPSTORAGE:55000 webpage. All I get is a "Service Not Available" reply.

So this evening, I plan on going back through the Factory Restore process (one more time), and this time I expect the installation to fully be completed through the DVD.

Thanks again for the spot-on help!


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