Troubleshooting OS Install

[SovietBroski]

I have recently acquired a Dell Power-Edge 2900. It was formerly used to support a small business network. I assisted in the decommissioning of the server. I got to keep the system hardware, on the condition that I return all 5 of the installed hard drives, so that they may be securely disposed of. I have already done this and I have replaced them with some random drives which I just had lying around. Specifically, I have 2 120 Gb drives which I have configured in raid 1. This is an extremely temporary configuration while I am waiting for funds. My intention is to use the system as a home-lab sort of thing so that I can play around with / get a feel for various types of server installations. I have downloaded the iso for Ubuntu Server and installed it on a USB flash drive. The issue that I am running into is that the system is not recognizing any boot media. I am a novice when it comes to servers and this one has me stumped. 

[Adnanklink]

Type in 'lsblk' in a terminal window. This should return all the attached storage devices that it can 'see'.

 

-Adnan

[SovietBroski]

7 minutes ago, Adnanklink said:

Type in 'lsblk' in a terminal window. This should return all the attached storage devices that it can 'see'.

 

-Adnan

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but how do I open the terminal from within the boot sequence?

[SovietBroski]

if it helps, here is exactly what i am looking at. When the system tries to boot, it displays the following text:

 

F2 = Setup

F10 = Utility Mode

F11 = Boot Menu

F12 = PXE Boot

Two 2.50 GHz Quad-core Processors, Bus Speed: 1333 MHz, L2 Cache: 2x6 MB

System Memory Size: 8.0 GB, System Memory Speed 667 MHz

 

 

Broadcom NetXtreme II Ethernet Boot Agent v4.4.4

Copyright © 2000-2008 Broadcom Corporation

All rights reserved.

Press Ctrl-S to Configure Device (MAC Address – xxxxxxxxxxxx)

 

 

PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller BIOS

Copyright © 2008 LSI Corporation

Press <Ctrl><R> to Run Configuration Utility

HA -0 (Bus 1 Dev 0) PERC 6/I Integrated

FW package: 6.2.0-0013

1 Virtual Drive(s) found on the host adapter.

1 Virtual Drive(s) handled by BIOS

 

 

Remote Access Configuration Utility 1.28

Copyright 2006 Dell Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

Baseboard Management Controller Revision 2.37

Primary Backplane Firmware Revision 1.05

 

IP Address: 0.0.0.0

Netmask: 0.0.0.0

Gateway: 0.0.0.0

Press <Ctrl-E> for Remote Access Setup within 5 sec. . .

 

Broadcom UNDI PXE-2.1 v4.4.4

Copyright © 2000-2008 Broadcom Corporation

Copyright © 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

All rights reserved.

 

Broadcom Base Code PXE-2.1 v1.1.0

Copyright © 2000-2008 Broadcom Corporation

Copyright © 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

CLIENT MAC ADDR: xx xx xx xx xx xx GUID: xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx

 

PXE-E53: No boot filename received

PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM.

Strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility

[Jarsky]

Can a 2900 boot from USB? 

Have you gone into BIOS or F11 to see if the USB device shows up there? 

[Salv8 (sam)]

it's from 2006, i don't think USB booting was even a think back then, you will need a bootable media that will allow you to boot into unsupported formats

a bootable OS called "Plop"

https://www.plop.at/en/home.html

allows you to do this and it's based in Linux so Ubuntu should work

go to the boot manager download (downloads > boot manager downloads) and download the latest one, burn the ISO to a disk and boot into it (it's in the zip, first ISO fiel you see when opening it)

when it has booted select the boot manager option. when it has loaded, select the USB option, Ubuntu should boot...

it may encounter some problems, don't worry, we can help with that, just a warning

[AbsoluteFool]

Seems you me you have PXE boot enabeled. USB booting is a thing with those servers. But you can deactivate the USB ports, so they might be deactivated from the BIOS. 

[Adnanklink]

I misunderstood, I thought you had already booted off of USB and USB booting was definitely a thing in '06 . Either the USB device is disabled in bios or you made the usb installer incorrectly ( not bootable).

[AbsoluteFool]

13 minutes ago, Adnanklink said:

I misunderstood, I thought you had already booted off of USB and USB booting was definitely a thing in '06 . Either the USB device is disabled in bios or you made the usb installer incorrectly ( not bootable).

Fun sysadmin joke, do you know how "dfu's" make "bootable USB? They pull the ISO file into the USB storage.

[SovietBroski]

6 hours ago, Adnanklink said:

I misunderstood, I thought you had already booted off of USB and USB booting was definitely a thing in '06 . Either the USB device is disabled in bios or you made the usb installer incorrectly ( not bootable).

I made the bootable USB with a program called UNetbootin. I simply opened the program, selected the compressed ISO file, then selected the USB and ran the program. I am beginning to suspect that I have done something improperly here because I tried booting my home PC from the USB just to see if it would detect it. It did not.  

[SovietBroski]

21 hours ago, Jarsky said:

Can a 2900 boot from USB? 

Have you gone into BIOS or F11 to see if the USB device shows up there? 

When I go into the BIOS and set the boot priority, USB is not an option. However, when I enter the "Boot Options" menu, I can choose to "Boot from front USB 2.0" Doing so causes the system to repeat the last three lines of text that I have posted above. 

[SovietBroski]

A friend of mine has suggested that it may be an issue of my ISO being configured to work with a UEFI system and not a BIOS system. Though, everything I have been able to find on the subject suggests that, in the case of booting in a BIOS system, the ISO should launch a "Compatibility Mode" which would enable it to work with a BIOS instead of a UEFI. I am not sure how relevant or accurate any of this information is, but I figured that it would be worth bringing up.

[Jarsky]

5 hours ago, SovietBroski said:

A friend of mine has suggested that it may be an issue of my ISO being configured to work with a UEFI system and not a BIOS system. Though, everything I have been able to find on the subject suggests that, in the case of booting in a BIOS system, the ISO should launch a "Compatibility Mode" which would enable it to work with a BIOS instead of a UEFI. I am not sure how relevant or accurate any of this information is, but I figured that it would be worth bringing up.

 

It brings up a good point that it may be formated with GPT or something. Did you use Rufus to create the bootable USB?

If not I suggest you give that a try, and under partition scheme change it from GPT to MBR and change the filesystem from NTFS to FAT32.

Tick "create a bootable disk" select ISO Image, and select the Ubuntu ISO, then create.

When it loads it should use its compatibility to use the BIOS loader rather than the UEFI loader. 

[SovietBroski]

On 10/31/2018 at 12:14 AM, Jarsky said:

 

It brings up a good point that it may be formated with GPT or something. Did you use Rufus to create the bootable USB?

If not I suggest you give that a try, and under partition scheme change it from GPT to MBR and change the filesystem from NTFS to FAT32.

Tick "create a bootable disk" select ISO Image, and select the Ubuntu ISO, then create.

When it loads it should use its compatibility to use the BIOS loader rather than the UEFI loader. 

This worked, Thank you all so much!