Topic: Reboot loop on HP hardware

[NoTo]

Good morning all,

If this has been covered elsewhere, please provide a link. I did a search, but could only find a similar problem referring to a HP N10 which didn't seem to go anywhere...

I'm testing SME 8 on three different HP desktops. These are machines pulled from service that are 'known good' and have been running various Linux desktops until recently, and have all run SME 7.x test installs at one time or another.

The hardware and install attempted are as follows:

HP d530 USDT, P4, 2Gb RAM, 80Gb SATA disk - SME 8.0 i386
HP dc7100 SFF, P4, 2.5Gb RAM, 160Gb SATA disk - SME 8.0 i386
HP dc7800 SFF, Core2, 6Gb RAM, 250Gb SATA disk - SME 8.0 x64

The i386 and x64 ISO images were obtained from the main site as direct downloads. DVDs were burned under Xubuntu 13.04, and verified.

Booting from the DVD works fine and in each case I take the option to check the media, then allow the install to continue. It completes with no errors in each case, and spits the DVD out and asks me to reboot.

At that stage I get to BIOS-displayed 'booting from drive C' (or whatever the specific message is) after POST and it immediately flips-out and reboots. This happens on all three machines with the two different DVDs. The flipping-out will happen continuously and repeatably if you allow it - though it gets a bit 'samey' after a while 

I've read that someone had success installing 7.x then 'upgrading' to 8.0 but I have not tried that.

I'm keen to know what I should do next, if you'd be so kind as to offer suggestions.

With thanks,
Graham

[TerryF]

I have installed SME8 to a 7800 before, its sitting on the floor behind me now..

What was the last OS that was on the system prior to the SME install..

What is the BIOS setup for the HDs?

You may find you need to looka ta boot options http://wiki.contribs.org/Booting

[NoTo]

Tried pretty much every combination of BIOS settings I can think of, but to no avail. Set them all back to defaults after several hours fiddling. The settings are at a place where no other OS has ever complained, Linux, Windows etc. I'm pretty happy that the hardware is fine. I think it statistically unlikely all three would be having the same issues, though granted the one-in-a-million does happen.

Disks are used in the two newer (less old!) machines and have had various Linux on them over the years. The d530 has a new 250Gb SATA in it.

The install startup parameters I have similarly tried various combinations, but as yet I've not found one that results in a bootable system.

As an experiment, I just downloaded SME 7.6 (i386) and did an install on the d530 (lowest common denominator) and it's fine. Initial install ok, rebooted into install and config, all went swimmingly. It works as a server just like it should. I then ran the SME 8.0 and took the 'upgrade' option, and it has upgraded it to a fully-functioning SME 8.0 server, that boots and runs normally.

I suppose the next step would be to try a SME 8.1b2 and 9b2 to see if the same initial boot issues exist.

[TerryF]

So, what cards in all three boxes that are common if at all, google has a number of refs to issues with cards etc in the 7100 and 7800, plus making sure BIOS is set to AHCI, or raid as this automatically sets AHCI.

[stephdl]

I suppose the next step would be to try a SME 8.1b2 and 9b2 to see if the same initial boot issues exist.

If you want to see if the error comes from the redhat side or the sme side, you should try to install a centos 5 O.S.
Sometime we can see errors come from upstream

[NoTo]

Thanks both for comments and suggestions. I've not had much time to pursue much this week. I'm at the stage of trialling three server OS to see what I'm going to settle on for the current refresh, which is now down to a two-horse race. If I settle on SME8, then I'll look into the HP-related issues I've had in greater depth, for my own and other's benefit. Judging by the search results I got on the internet, there seems to be a good few HP-related CentOS issues on non-SMEServer forums etc, so I'm moderately happy at this stage to go with the 7.6 to 8.0 upgrade on my test boxes. I don't even know for sure what the new hardware will be - it could be HP or A.N.Other. I'll report back once I know what route I'll be taking.

Cheers for now,
Graham

[p-jones]

NoTo

I have run SME 7 and 8 on both D530 and DC7100. 32bit Version. No issues whatsoever. 64Bit version definitely wont run on D530 and from memory, I dont think it runs on a DC7100, that too is a P4 CPU.

BIOS settings were default, booting first from CD, second from Hard Disk and third from floppy.

Cant help wondering if your downloaded DVD Images have been compromised somehow during the download. Bad downloads will still burn verify OK so long as the DVD matches the image downloaded and irrespective of the image you have not being the same as what you SHOULD have.