Setting up new server

[calebsurface]

Hi,
I recently was given and IBM eServer XSeries 345 and I can't figure out how to set it up. Could anyone possibly help me in this venture?

Thanks,
Caleb Surface

[CrackerJacker]

Thats very Vague. At what point of setting it up are you at? Also, what are wanting to do with it?

[calebsurface]

Right now I am at no point of setting it up. I've tried to install Ubuntu Server on it, but that didn't work. I've tried installing Windows XP on it, but that didn't work either. Not sure if I'm not doing it right or something. I would like to be able to use this at home as either a file server/proxy server type thing, or as just a super computer for personal use if that is possible.

[root]

you need to download the server guide CD.

it's a free download from IBMs site.

you download that, burn it to a CD and boot from that, it asks you a load of questions about setting up the RAID on the server, and the OS that you're going to install...

Crucially you need this CD because it'll load the SCSI drivers that are not included on the windows or linux distributions.

(otherwise (with windows at least) you've have to press f6 when booting from the CD and select to load extra drivers).

[calebsurface]

Okay so I made the disk and all, but I can't seem to get it to boot from the disk. How do I go about this?

[root]

have you set the server to boot from the CD in the bios?

also, are you sure that you downloaded the server-guide CD and not the server-raid CD

[calebsurface]

I got the ServerGuide CD. I tried looking in the bios to tell it to boot from disk, but I can't seem to find that...

[Jacob..]

Do you have the IDE or SCSI model?

[Neodude112320]

When you try installing Windows Xp,What do you mean by 'it doesnt work'? Errors? Freezing?

[calebsurface]

I'm not sure which it is, but I want to say it's an SCSI maybe? I can tell you that it is an IBM eServer xSeries 345 Machine Type: 8670 Model Number: 71X

When I say it doesn't work, I mean that I can't even get it to boot from the disk in order to install.

[Jacob..]

You need the scsi driver from IBM to install windows as you have a machine with scsi drives

[calebsurface]

Okay...and how do you do that?

[berry120]

Jacob is correct, but let's deal with that problem when we come to it - at the moment it's not even booting from the CD drive.

Bit of quick scouting around found this:

IBM Servers (many) have a strange menu for boot sequence:

in the BIOS main panel, you see a point as Startup Options:

when you enter here, it seems there is a sub-menu,
first row seems the title and above rows the choiche:

instead the first line is not the title but the first choiche, (there is a bullet) and you have to press enter
for real boot sequence setup.

See if that helps you locate the correct options in the BIOS.

[Jacob..]

Jacob is correct, but let's deal with that problem when we come to it - at the moment it's not even booting from the CD drive.

Bit of quick scouting around found this:

See if that helps you locate the correct options in the BIOS.

I forgot about that... The Bios menu is really strange and next time I reboot I will get some screen captures.

[root]

once you've figured out how to boot from a CD use the server guide CD, that has the SCSI drivers on it.

the only other way of getting the SCSI drivers would be including them on the windowsCD (difficult), or loading them from a floppy disk by pressing F6 when the setup program first starts.
(and you can only load them from a floppy in this way).

luckily IBM made it really easy and invented serverguide, that'll set up the SCSI drivers, the display drivers and the network drivers... and does most of it as an unattended install.