Dell Poweredge 4600

[Tadgh]

Hi guys,

 

Hard one for youz today

 

So a long while ago I was given a Dell Poweredge 4600 to play with. Just out of pure interest I decided to take it home and turn it into a NAS. There was one condition - I had to wipe all the HDDs before use.

 

So I take it home, and it's awesome. Very loud, very old, and for someone who has never really worked with something designed as a server before, a little confusing. It was really horrifically dusty so I rebuilt it, dusting every component I could, trying not to break anything.

 

But now I've been busy with school for a long while, and finally have the time to work on it again. Mostly everything seems to work. And by that I mean, it turns on . There are a few errors and problems I've run into, and these are they:

 

 

Display on front:

• LOG DISABLED SBE
• VOLT BATT

BIOS on startup:

• Invalid NVRAM Configuration, Resource Re-allocated *F1 to continue, F2 for setup utility*
• No boot device available *F1 to retry boot, F2 for steup utility*

For lack of a much better idea, I'm currently trying to install FreeNAS(x86) on it, upon retrying the boot, it finds boot/loader and continues attempting to install without interruption, until it reaches the lines:

Trying to mount root from cd9660:iso9660/FreeNAS_INSTALL []...

mountroot: waiting for device iso9960/FreeNAS_INSTALL...

Mounting from cd9660:iso9660/FreeNAS_INSTALL failed with error 19.

 

Here it runs until it requires manual input. Not sure if this is necessary but the Loader variables are:

 

vfs.root.mountfrom=cd9660:iso9660/FreeNAS_INSTALL

 

I've the following commands with the following responses:

 

mountroot> ?

 

List of GEOM managed disk devices:

cd0 fd0

 

mountroot> ufs:disk0

Trying to mount root from ufs:disk0 []...

mountroot: waiting for device disk0...

Mounting from ufs:disk0 failed with error 19.

 

mountroot> zfs:disk0

Trying to mount root from zfs:disk0 []...

Mounting from zfs:disk0 failed with error 2: unk.

 

mountroot> ufs:cd0

Trying to mount root from ufs:cd0 []...

g_vfs_done() :cd0[READ(offset=65536, length=8192)]error =5

Mounting from ufs:cd0 failed with error 5.

 

mountroot> ufs:fd0

Trying to mount root from ufs:fd0 []...

Mounting from ufs:fd0 failed with error 6.

 

I've tried booting with each of the HDDs in slot 0 up front, and repeated each of those commands with each HDD being disk0, and gotten the same result each time

 

Does anybody have any ideas on how I should get these HDDs wiped, and the server running on my home network (I have a CAT5 connection available) or where else I should ask about these problem?

 

Thanks guys,

All help will be appreciated,

Tadgh

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

Hi guys,

 

Hard one for youz today

 

So a long while ago I was given a Dell Poweredge 4600 to play with. Just out of pure interest I decided to take it home and turn it into a NAS. There was one condition - I had to wipe all the HDDs before use.

 

So I take it home, and it's awesome. Very loud, very old, and for someone who has never really worked with something designed as a server before, a little confusing. It was really horrifically dusty so I rebuilt it, dusting every component I could, trying not to break anything.

 

But now I've been busy with school for a long while, and finally have the time to work on it again. Mostly everything seems to work. And by that I mean, it turns on . There are a few errors and problems I've run into, and these are they:

 

 

Display on front:

• LOG DISABLED SBE
• VOLT BATT

BIOS on startup:

• Invalid NVRAM Configuration, Resource Re-allocated *F1 to continue, F2 for setup utility*
• No boot device available *F1 to retry boot, F2 for steup utility*

For lack of a much better idea, I'm currently trying to install FreeNAS(x86) on it, upon retrying the boot, it finds boot/loader and continues attempting to install without interruption, until it reaches the lines:

Trying to mount root from cd9660:iso9660/FreeNAS_INSTALL []...

mountroot: waiting for device iso9960/FreeNAS_INSTALL...

Mounting from cd9660:iso9660/FreeNAS_INSTALL failed with error 19.

 

Here it runs until it requires manual input. Not sure if this is necessary but the Loader variables are:

 

vfs.root.mountfrom=cd9660:iso9660/FreeNAS_INSTALL

 

I've the following commands with the following responses:

 

mountroot> ?

 

List of GEOM managed disk devices:

cd0 fd0

 

mountroot> ufs:disk0

Trying to mount root from ufs:disk0 []...

mountroot: waiting for device disk0...

Mounting from ufs:disk0 failed with error 19.

 

mountroot> zfs:disk0

Trying to mount root from zfs:disk0 []...

Mounting from zfs:disk0 failed with error 2: unk.

 

mountroot> ufs:cd0

Trying to mount root from ufs:cd0 []...

g_vfs_done() :cd0[READ(offset=65536, length=8192)]error =5

Mounting from ufs:cd0 failed with error 5.

 

mountroot> ufs:fd0

Trying to mount root from ufs:fd0 []...

Mounting from ufs:fd0 failed with error 6.

 

I've tried booting with each of the HDDs in slot 0 up front, and repeated each of those commands with each HDD being disk0, and gotten the same result each time

 

Does anybody have any ideas on how I should get these HDDs wiped, and the server running on my home network (I have a CAT5 connection available) or where else I should ask about these problem?

 

Thanks guys,

All help will be appreciated,

Tadgh

 

Your having RAM issues....

 

"LOG DISABLED SBE"  is reporting a ram problem

 

"Invalid NVRAM Configuration"  is reporting a RAM problem.  Normaly because you have your RAM in the incorrect order or not in the correct slots.  Take all the ram out and put it in the correct config

 

The 12 DIMM sockets are divided into three memory banks. install memory modules in matched sets of four, two in each memory riser card. Install a pair of memory modules in socket BANK1_A and BANK1_B before installing a second pair in sockets BANK2_A and BANK2_B.

 

If you have different sises of ram start with the smallest and work your way up each bank to the largest ammount.  All the RAM has to be the same.  so do two sticks at a time and boot the server each time to check you have done it correctly.

 

"VOLT BATT"  You probably have a raid card in there with a external battery in the server.  Look at this and see if it goes away : http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/956/t/17663508

 

If you want to wipe the hard drives you can use Dban: http://www.dban.org/   Just load the iso on to a cd and wipe the disks.

 

Thinking through it. If your having issues with your raid battery that probably means that you have lost the RAID config on your raid card on the server.  

 

Enter in to your raid card and add all your disks to an array and see if FreeNas sees the disks then.   This may help: http://englishversion.tumblr.com/post/34502793569/dell-poweredge-4600-server-raid-configuration

 

 

You will need to "initilise" all the drives before you can use them.

 

Hope this helps.

[Tadgh]

Your having RAM issues....

 

"LOG DISABLED SBE"  is reporting a ram problem

 

"Invalid NVRAM Configuration"  is reporting a RAM problem.  Normaly because you have your RAM in the incorrect order or not in the correct slots.  Take all the ram out and put it in the correct config

 

The 12 DIMM sockets are divided into three memory banks. install memory modules in matched sets of four, two in each memory riser card. Install a pair of memory modules in socket BANK1_A and BANK1_B before installing a second pair in sockets BANK2_A and BANK2_B.

 

If you have different sises of ram start with the smallest and work your way up each bank to the largest ammount.  All the RAM has to be the same.  so do two sticks at a time and boot the server each time to check you have done it correctly.

 

"VOLT BATT"  You probably have a raid card in there with a external battery in the server.  Look at this and see if it goes away : http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/956/t/17663508

 

If you want to wipe the hard drives you can use Dban: http://www.dban.org/   Just load the iso on to a cd and wipe the disks.

 

Thinking through it. If your having issues with your raid battery that probably means that you have lost the RAID config on your raid card on the server.  

 

Enter in to your raid card and add all your disks to an array and see if FreeNas sees the disks then.   This may help: http://englishversion.tumblr.com/post/34502793569/dell-poweredge-4600-server-raid-configuration

 

 

You will need to "initilise" all the drives before you can use them.

 

Hope this helps.

You, my friend, are an absolute life saver. Thank you so much.

Have a great day, and life,

Tadgh

[ionbasa]

The Volt Bat error could also indicates a bad CMOS battery. Make sure to replace it, otherwise, your BIOS settings will be lost/reset on a power failure (or when you unplug the server).

[Tadgh]

The Volt Bat error could also indicates a bad CMOS battery. Make sure to replace it, otherwise, your BIOS settings will be lost/reset on a power failure (or when you unplug the server).

Ty mate! Also how would I "initialise" my HDDs?

*Forgot to expand here, see post below*

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

Ty mate! Also how would I "initialise" my HDDs?

Hi.  This link showed how to Initialise your HDDs.  It has to be done on the raid card:   http://englishversion.tumblr.com/post/34502793569/dell-poweredge-4600-server-raid-configuration

[Tadgh]

Hi.  This link showed how to Initialise your HDDs.  It has to be done on the raid card:   http://englishversion.tumblr.com/post/34502793569/dell-poweredge-4600-server-raid-configuration

Ah, apologies I should have clarified, the RAID Firmware doesn't exist on the server. I get warnings about it every time I switch from SICS to RAID. Any idea why that might be, or how I could initialize the drives without there being a RAID configuration?

[AmbrosiaMV]

As a fellow PowerEdge owner (however, it's chilling under a bed in my parent's house at this point probably) just stopping in to wish you the best of luck! They're a very handy platform, especially for learning purposes. I had a 2950 which I used as a small Linux fileserver for a short period of time.. not much use practically, but definitely taught me a few things!

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

Ah, apologies I should have clarified, the RAID Firmware doesn't exist on the server. I get warnings about it every time I switch from SICS to RAID. Any idea why that might be, or how I could initialize the drives without there being a RAID configuration?

Hi. In theory you shouldnt have to initilise the disk.....  I dont remember having to when i swapped to SICS.  If your not using the RAID then i would recomend removing the RAID Key and RAID RAM from the server. Having just one disk in and loading another OS on to it to start. If it still cant see the drive, Normaly i would attempt a server 2003 install, if it sees the disk then good. otherwise you can use something called a xp live cd.  which is just a very small version of xp that fits on a CD and you can boot straight in to XP off the CD, admitidly its slow but you can then look at your drives though disk manager.

 

Probably best to check that all your firmware is up to date as you may need to load the firmware for the make of drive you are using, windows need for that though and its not allways required to do this.

 

You can also load the firmware for your raid card on the server using a floppy disk (omg did i just say floppies!)  just be ceafull, I bricked a scisi hard drive back plane once updaing the firmware for a poweredge 2650....

 

Heres the link to all the drives for your server: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/poweredge-xeon4600/drivers

 

In my experiance with the older dell servers they can suck a bit when your trying to get drives registering correclty. just the way it is unfortunatly.  If the ISCSI doesnt work for you RAID may be your ownly option.

 

Let me know if you have any further questions and ill do my best to help

[Tadgh]

As a fellow PowerEdge owner (however, it's chilling under a bed in my parent's house at this point probably) just stopping in to wish you the best of luck! They're a very handy platform, especially for learning purposes. I had a 2950 which I used as a small Linux fileserver for a short period of time.. not much use practically, but definitely taught me a few things!

Thank you!

 

I've been a system builder for a few years now on and off outside school (a few spare euro never go amiss!), but I've never really worked with any in depth networking or file storage. I have a NAS build planned when I can get the money together but I'm totally new to FreeBSD, and the blue smoke that is servers.

 

I'm really coming to enjoy sorting out the problems the PE4600 has offered me Hope I learn as much as you did, people on this forum can be hella smart ;D

[Tadgh]

Hi. In theory you shouldnt have to initilise the disk.....  I dont remember having to when i swapped to SICS.  If your not using the RAID then i would recomend removing the RAID Key and RAID RAM from the server. Having just one disk in and loading another OS on to it to start. If it still cant see the drive, Normaly i would attempt a server 2003 install, if it sees the disk then good. otherwise you can use something called a xp live cd.  which is just a very small version of xp that fits on a CD and you can boot straight in to XP off the CD, admitidly its slow but you can then look at your drives though disk manager.

 

Probably best to check that all your firmware is up to date as you may need to load the firmware for the make of drive you are using, windows need for that though and its not allways required to do this.

 

You can also load the firmware for your raid card on the server using a floppy disk (omg did i just say floppies!)  just be ceafull, I bricked a scisi hard drive back plane once updaing the firmware for a poweredge 2650....

 

Heres the link to all the drives for your server: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/poweredge-xeon4600/drivers

 

In my experiance with the older dell servers they can suck a bit when your trying to get drives registering correclty. just the way it is unfortunatly.  If the ISCSI doesnt work for you RAID may be your ownly option.

 

Let me know if you have any further questions and ill do my best to help

I love you, and next time I get a chance to work on this I'll work on all of that advice and probably come back with questions ^-^

[AmbrosiaMV]

Thank you!

 

I've been a system builder for a few years now on and off outside school (a few spare euro never go amiss!), but I've never really worked with any in depth networking or file storage. I have a NAS build planned when I can get the money together but I'm totally new to FreeBSD, and the blue smoke that is servers.

 

I'm really coming to enjoy sorting out the problems the PE4600 has offered me Hope I learn as much as you did, people on this forum can be hella smart ;D

That's the way to learn! Confusion within the blue smoke! I was fortunate enough to have a local group of friends who are all very talented, and very well educated. They've been a huge asset in teaching me a few things as I go along in the motions. 

[Tadgh]

-Being helpful-

So recently I found a few hours (and about 2L of orange juice) to get to work on the PE4600 and got to work on your suggestions, and have come back with a few queries:

 

I removed the RAID Key and RAID RAM, but after that the system wouldn't boot after that, giving the 1-3-2 beeping complaint *Invalid RAM configuration*. I reinserted the RAID RAM and got the same 1-3-2 error code. After this I reinserted the RAID Key and the system booted without issue. From here on I disabled RAID from the BIOS by changing the integrated device settings. I didn't run into any situations where this was an explicit problem - but this was the one suggestion of yours I was unable to follow.

 

I burned both Windows XP Live and Windows Server 2003 onto discs. I started by removing all but 1 drives (drive 0 remained in the PE4600), I then set the integrated device settings in the setup utility to SICS on both Channel A and B. I loaded Windows Server 2003 which failed to detect any drives. After this I switched to booting into the XP Live CD. Unfortunatly the copy of the Live CD I had obtained was quite modified, and rather than having an accessible disk manager it had a file management application. However as far I can tell this was just a different front to Explorer so I didn't think there'd be much of a difference in functionality and continued on with this disk. I then proceeded to boot the Live CD under all integrated device settings: Off, SCSI, and RAID.

 

In each condition XP failed to recognise a the drive (which is powered on and has been functioning recently enough for me not to question it's functionality). However when set to use the RAID controller I got the old error message declaring: 'Warning: Embedded RAID firmware is not present!'

 

So I suppose the next step would be to install the RAID Firmware and see if I can initialise the drives, and/or install the drive firmware - but I don't have any Floppy Disks or anyway I'd write to a Floppy!

So if I could take the time to wrack your brains:

 

• How would I install the RAID/Drive Firmware from a CD?
• I've never done a firmware update, what do I need to be careful of?
• Is it a problem that I'm still recieving the 'Invalid NVRAM configuration' message? I resat the RAM Modules in the correct configuration, I'm sure of it, I did it a few times.

 

Thanks for your time and patience.

[Tadgh]

As a fellow PowerEdge owner (however, it's chilling under a bed in my parent's house at this point probably) just stopping in to wish you the best of luck! They're a very handy platform, especially for learning purposes. I had a 2950 which I used as a small Linux fileserver for a short period of time.. not much use practically, but definitely taught me a few things!

You lucky duck my friends are all gamers and I'm alone in my technical adventures.

 

I've actually switched to Linux on my Laptop! I've been completely taken aback and totally blown away - I had the good luck to start on Crunchbang and it captured my heart and refuses to give it back. It was too old to run some Emulators I like to run, or Steam natively ( ) so I went distro hopping for about 4 days and settled on Elementary OS. I can only describe how awesome it is with very vulgar noises, so I won't for now. In fact, when #!++ 64-bit is released and stable I plan to dual-boot on my desktop. If it weren't for the gaming I'd just migrate to Linux and ditch Windows. 

 

So, thanks for the support - it's changed my whole computing experience to something much more enjoyable

[ionbasa]

So recently I found a few hours (and about 2L of orange juice) to get to work on the PE4600 and got to work on your suggestions, and have come back with a few queries:

 

I removed the RAID Key and RAID RAM, but after that the system wouldn't boot after that, giving the 1-3-2 beeping complaint *Invalid RAM configuration*. I reinserted the RAID RAM and got the same 1-3-2 error code. After this I reinserted the RAID Key and the system booted without issue. From here on I disabled RAID from the BIOS by changing the integrated device settings. I didn't run into any situations where this was an explicit problem - but this was the one suggestion of yours I was unable to follow.

 

I burned both Windows XP Live and Windows Server 2003 onto discs. I started by removing all but 1 drives (drive 0 remained in the PE4600), I then set the integrated device settings in the setup utility to SICS on both Channel A and B. I loaded Windows Server 2003 which failed to detect any drives. After this I switched to booting into the XP Live CD. Unfortunatly the copy of the Live CD I had obtained was quite modified, and rather than having an accessible disk manager it had a file management application. However as far I can tell this was just a different front to Explorer so I didn't think there'd be much of a difference in functionality and continued on with this disk. I then proceeded to boot the Live CD under all integrated device settings: Off, SCSI, and RAID.

 

In each condition XP failed to recognise a the drive (which is powered on and has been functioning recently enough for me not to question it's functionality). However when set to use the RAID controller I got the old error message declaring: 'Warning: Embedded RAID firmware is not present!'

 

So I suppose the next step would be to install the RAID Firmware and see if I can initialise the drives, and/or install the drive firmware - but I don't have any Floppy Disks or anyway I'd write to a Floppy!

So if I could take the time to wrack your brains:

 

• How would I install the RAID/Drive Firmware from a CD?
• I've never done a firmware update, what do I need to be careful of?
• Is it a problem that I'm still recieving the 'Invalid NVRAM configuration' message? I resat the RAM Modules in the correct configuration, I'm sure of it, I did it a few times.

 

Thanks for your time and patience.

You can use a USB flash drive to update the RAID firmware. Make sure its formatted as FAT32. 

I would start by upgrading the BIOS to the latest version. Sometimes BIOS updates also package together optionROM (in this case RAID or PXE boot) firmware updates. 

 

If it still needs the firmware update after a BIOS update, you'll need to update it separately . 

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

So recently I found a few hours (and about 2L of orange juice) to get to work on the PE4600 and got to work on your suggestions, and have come back with a few queries:

I removed the RAID Key and RAID RAM, but after that the system wouldn't boot after that, giving the 1-3-2 beeping complaint *Invalid RAM configuration*. I reinserted the RAID RAM and got the same 1-3-2 error code. After this I reinserted the RAID Key and the system booted without issue. From here on I disabled RAID from the BIOS by changing the integrated device settings. I didn't run into any situations where this was an explicit problem - but this was the one suggestion of yours I was unable to follow.

I burned both Windows XP Live and Windows Server 2003 onto discs. I started by removing all but 1 drives (drive 0 remained in the PE4600), I then set the integrated device settings in the setup utility to SICS on both Channel A and B. I loaded Windows Server 2003 which failed to detect any drives. After this I switched to booting into the XP Live CD. Unfortunatly the copy of the Live CD I had obtained was quite modified, and rather than having an accessible disk manager it had a file management application. However as far I can tell this was just a different front to Explorer so I didn't think there'd be much of a difference in functionality and continued on with this disk. I then proceeded to boot the Live CD under all integrated device settings: Off, SCSI, and RAID.

In each condition XP failed to recognise a the drive (which is powered on and has been functioning recently enough for me not to question it's functionality). However when set to use the RAID controller I got the old error message declaring: 'Warning: Embedded RAID firmware is not present!'

So I suppose the next step would be to install the RAID Firmware and see if I can initialise the drives, and/or install the drive firmware - but I don't have any Floppy Disks or anyway I'd write to a Floppy!

So if I could take the time to wrack your brains:

• How would I install the RAID/Drive Firmware from a CD?
• I've never done a firmware update, what do I need to be careful of?
• Is it a problem that I'm still recieving the 'Invalid NVRAM configuration' message? I resat the RAM Modules in the correct configuration, I'm sure of it, I did it a few times.

Thanks for your time and patience.

Hmm ok.

You can install on a CD if dell provide the driver for a CD alternatively you can convert a the floppy file in to a .img or. Iso file and burn it to a disk or usb, there is a program that does this but I can't remember it's name now, allthough If I do I'll paste a link to the installer

If the above fails dell should provide A exe installer for the driver, you can then load the live CD and and run the exe off a usb or the CD it's self.

Incidentally I found a win7 live dvd image today that may also help as a last resort if you have a USB dvd drive

Things to be carefull of

Normaly bios updates go ok and it's rare you could do it wrong unless your not concentrating on every step.

But when getting in to updating those other driver's it can get a bit more interesting. You have to make sure you have the correct driver and other things are updated first such as your bios.

If you run the wrong thing it could break something more.

Best to update the bios first, then go for the raid.

Regarding the ram. It's a bit strange your still getting the error.

If you remove your raid key and raid ram. And then remove all you ram from the DIMM slots except for the first one, does it boot?

If it doesn't boot does the DDR meet the specified requirements on the original dell spec sheet?