No Drives showing in Windows Server 2008 R2 (Itanium) for bl860c i2

[TheUbMunster]

Hello,

I've been trying to install Windows Server 2008 R2 on my itanium blade for a couple of days now. Regardless if I attempt to use the smartsetup cd, or if I straight up go to the UEFI shell, switch to the windows cd, go to efi/boot/ an run the efi file, the issue I'm experiencing is inside the windows installer itself.

After windows loads the installer, and the installation begins, I'm able to select region etc., agree to eula, but once I get to the screen where I have to select what hard disk to install windows to, there are zero options. My p410i is in HBA mode, and the "map" command in the UEFI shell does report the presence of a hard disk (as well as my bootable windows installer usb that I've been using).

I'm under the impression from scattered info on these forums and random pdf documentation files that I've been able to find that I need to "install a driver" for windows to be able to even detect the drive being "gatekept" by the p410i hba. I did find some .exe files (e.g. this cp013843.exe file at  https://support.hpe.com/connect/s/softwaredetails?collectionId=MTX-ecf1150f4a594cab) that if I put on a usb drive, start the installer, I'm able to open a command prompt using shift+F10 and cd to the exe, and run it to "install the driver".

Unfortunately, every attempt to do so has either:

• had no apparent effect
• did not work due to missing dll's (e.g., msi.dll)
• said it required a system restart to come into effect, but since I'm trying to install windows (nothing commited yet), doing so would reset my progress and the "installed driver" would just be lost.

I even rooted through the smartsetup iso and found several of these .exe driver files, copied them to a usb drive, and made a batch file to iterate and execute every single exe in the directory to try and install as many drivers and (I would imagine) the smartstart disk would have done.

I have had little luck with the smartsetup disk (I'm using version 7.1, https://support.hpe.com/connect/s/softwaredetails?collectionId=MTX-4fd586a47b6c4d72), after jumping through all the hoops the experience of the smartsetup diverges slightly from the PDF instructions that come with it in the iso's docs folder, and ultimately launches the windows installer with no discernable difference than had I just done it myself through the UEFI shell. The "headless" experience (see step 19 on page 37 of the install-guide-ws2k8-r2.pdf) of installing it indicates that I should eventually type in "cmd", then check some files, etc., but for me, when "windows begins loading files from disk", instead of this prompt "The CMD command is avaliable" ever showing up, it just starts the windows installer.

This is very frustrating, especially since the documentation seems to be lying to me. I have checked after reseting the system that the _ebsu_ and other such files are indeed created, but they are inaccessible within the windows installer (since it can't even see the hard disk), so I'm unable to interact with them.

I updated the p410i firmware up to the latest version, and that seems to have no effect on things.

Please let me know if I can provide more info, I will do my best.

[support_s]

System recommended content:

1. Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 on HP Integrity Servers Release Notes v7.1

2. Installation Guide, Windows Server 2008 R2 on HP Integrity Servers v7.1 (T2369-90032, March 2011)

Please click on "Thumbs Up/Kudo" icon to give a "Kudo".

Thank you for being a HPE valuable community member.

[TheUbMunster]

I believe the first recommended content (from the support_s bot) refers to the aformentioned install-guide-ws2k8-r2.pdf from my original post. The second document is short and mentions that the "Download drivers and software page" has an entry "Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-based Systems". I do not see this entry, but I do have an iso for this, I'm not sure if HP's distribution would be any different from the one I acquired. I'm fairly certain the one I obtained isn't entirely incorrect, as (e.g., the architecture was wrong, then it wouldn't even run the windows installer on the ia64 system of mine).

Something I did notice though from the install guide is that step 2 on page 31 for "Install from a Headless Console" says to "Load the HP Smart Setup media into the server DVD drive." That's what I've been doing so far in this process, and how I've been using the EBSU utility to begin with. However, step 18 on page 37 says "When prompted, insert the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system CD and press Enter".

Something I'm wondering is that it never says to eject the Smart Setup CD and then insert the windows cd. Do I need two DVD drives connected to the server, one for the smart setup, and the second for the windows media (when it says to insert it?). If so (I don't have two usb dvd drives), could I use my windows iso on a usb drive instead? I tried this once, and it didn't work, but perhaps it's something I should try to explore a bit more? I'm fairly certain the usb is setup correctly because I am able to boot the windows setup installer from the bootx64.efi file found in the /efi/boot directory.

[TheUbMunster]

So I tried a couple of other things. I got a second identical drive in the system then used saupdate to switch the controller from HBA mode to RAID mode, then made a raid 1+0 (with only two drives, so raid 1) config in ORCA. After doing so, I ran the Smart Setup CD, and went through the steps to install windows server 2008 r2 (itanium) again (gui mode). Not only did windows actually see partitions this time, but it was able to see them without me needing to install any drivers via the command prompt (either through shift+f10, or through SAC).

Although I am glad to find out that it seems there isn't anything wrong with my hardware, I would really rather have windows installed on a single drive instead of two, but as outlined, it never seemed to work in HBA mode.

Under the premise I've described, does this imply that I misconfigured/"not properly configure" the HBA mode when I was attempting to do it that way?

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

Firstly, did you check if this Integrity BL860c i2 supports Windows Server 2008?
Check if these links help you:
https://www.hpe.com/in/en/servers/server-operating-systems.html
https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c02292331
https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c02535395
https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c02110937   page#31, 130

Thank You!
I work with HPE but opinions expressed here are mine.

[jsm6]

Hi,

Yes, the controller needs to be set to RAID mode prior installing Windows.

Refer :  https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c02766245&docLocale=en_US (Page 30)

Users may encounter a rare problem when attempting to configure their HP BL8x0 i2 or rx2800 i2 boot volume before installing the OS. 
In these situations, the system recognizes the embedded boot controller but cannot see the attached RAID boot volume because the controller is configured in HBA mode instead of RAID mode.
This can sometimes happen if Windows was not pre-installed on the system, or the controller originally came from a system running some other OS (like HP-UX).
If you encounter this problem, use the Smart Array Update command line utility (SAUPDATE) to manually configure the controller from HBA mode to RAID mode.
Once configured correctly,the system should recognize the boot volume and you can proceed with the OS

installation.

Thanks.

[jsm6 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Meanwhile, did you get an option to create a RAID 0 volume with single drive and attempted install?  That could be an option if you need it on only one drive.

Thanks.

[TheUbMunster]

@jsm6 @Suman_1978 Reply to Suman_1978: I don't know if it support "Windows Server 2008", but it does support "Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-based Systems", which is what I installed.

Reply to both of jsm6's posts: I didn't see the document mention that windows "cannot work" in HBA mode, especially since somewhere I read something along the lines of "When the controller is in HBA mode, the drives are shown to the operating system as-is" (which is basically what I wanted) but HBA mode not working is the behavior I've observed in my attempts. As for the RAID 0 idea, I would have figured that it wouldn't allow you to configure raid 0 without >=2 drives (because then it wouldn't really be RAID, and for that matter, the same is probably true for RAID 1+0), however, on paper that sounds like a perfect idea, I will give it a shot and get back to you.

[TheUbMunster]

Very odd that they don't phrase it as a "you must use RAID mode" rather than "some people have issues if you aren't using RAID". Either way, made a new volume (RAID 0, with a single drive it wouldn't even let me select 0+1), and the windows install worked just fine. Thanks everyone, and jsm6 for the advice to solve this problem.

[Sunitha_Mod]

Hello @TheUbMunster,

That's Excellent! 

We are extremely glad to know the problem has been resolved and we appreciate you for keeping us posted.