Having spent a large portion of my free time this year trying to breath new life into my EX47# Sempron 1800mhz 2GB, I am hitting nothing but walls in providing it with a working OS.
I have tried all the various flavors of FreeBSD NAS, Debian, Ubuntu etc all of which are great provided I don't want to use all my drives! Tried all sorts of driver updates with no success.

The BIOS with the settings at 4Pata + 4Sata identify all 4 identical drives on POST, but all the Linux solutions are missing one or two drives. Its usually the 2nd Master [3] of the 4 Sata drives ( there are no Pata so IDE disabled.) I've tried most of the BIOS options to try and make the drives accessible but generally if not in BIOS then not seen by linux.

The links to patch the BIOS are largely dead as are the HP driver downloads so i've had to rebuild it with basic Windows Home Server 2003 and even this is missing the custom HP components including the drivers for the drive bay lights. Nor will it Activate windows any more as even the telephone or text msg+web activation mess up with WHS, oh joy.

Per chance is there anyone out there with the necessary files on disk gathering dust somewhere which could get this machine back in use as its spent much of its life unused due to one driver or another and I need a working NAS DLNA solution.

I'd love NAS4FREE, FREEnas, OMV, AMAHI+Fedora25, Ubuntu 14/16 server to work. The current Windows 2003 Home Server is the only solution which sees my 4 JBOD setup...Don,t want Raid as a power glitch lost the contents in the 1st place.

HELP PLEASE !!!

Hello, welcome.
I did some googling and did not come up with much, then searched this site and found this:
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3922&hilit=FreeNAS

I have to say it is probably old and he ended up having to use the vga adapter so he could see, but It might help.
You can still get a vga adapter on ebay, it's not as good as the ones we use to get here, but still should help.

This is not my sale, but about all I have found to recommend to people.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=hp+mediasmart+vga&_sacat=0

I wish you much luck and if you get it working, maybe you could do a little "How To" here, it might help others as we are all looking for something down the road.

Good Luck and enjoy.

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[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2012E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud

Yep, seen it. With those BIOS setting I will only see two drives.
I use a VGA+PS2 cable most of the time to build as impractical without.

Ho Hum..

Sorry to hear. The 470's were great units when they came out, but that makes it even more of a shame that you have one that, while being old has low mileage.
I had 2 470's gave them to my Brother-in-law down in Ft. Collins Colo. about 5-6 years ago, they are still running strong.

Good Luck, if you figure something out please let us know... Lots of 470's still out there just waiting for a new OS.

_________________
[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2012E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud

Ouch!!

First thing that comes to mind is the KEY for the Server is in the BIOS so if the BIOS was changed or modified to the point the key was removed then you would have to call Microsoft to get the software activated yet there is a key on the bottom of the server which should work to activate the server without having to call Microsoft. With discontinued servers and support its hard to say what Microsoft is doing and its been a couple years since I had done a recovery on a server.

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Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Sounds like he may have a vanilla flavor of WHS, which I have a copy myself, but not only does it not have the HP software, I doubt it will register without a phone home and maybe not even then.

I still see CD's for all the different versions of servers on ebay about every-time I go look. One might be able to get set for cheap. I realize it's windows, but if it working and you have duplication turned on at least it's something.

There are two versions of disc's for the 470, you would need one of them as the other servers cd's won't work.
Good Luckand enjoy.

_________________
[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2012E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud

If you have overwritten the BIOS then the keys are gone and so automatic activation of the OS will not happen and it will ask or require you to call Microsoft but it should give you the option to enter a key in the beginning and a valid key is on the bottom of the unit. That's why I said OUCH! I understand why they made these things headless but in the end it became the biggest weakness of the servers. I have one unit that was supposed to be headless an Acer WHS2011 server and it had a VGA Port on the motherboard but the knockout was blocking access too it yet it is fully functional.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Let me do some digging around.

I previously had an installation of Amahi running on my EX475. It currently is down due to a hard shutdown related to a power outage. I need to hook up my vga cable to try and trouble shoot it. When I originally installed Amahi 7 there was a lot of troubleshooting I had to due to get it going. I am hoping to install Fedora 25 and Amahi 10 in the next few weeks.

In the bios, be sure the SATA emulation is set for all 4 bays as 4(IDE) or only 1 & 3 will be recognized. This is key.

Check out the amahi.org forums for some hints on how to get this working (or how it worked in the past). I have a copy of the HP EX475 SMI USB files if needed.