Having trouble Installing Operating System unto a Used Server!

[Jacob117]

I purchased a used server from ebay for about 123 dollars and i am having a tremendous amount of difficulty in loading an OS unto the hard drive.

It's a SuperServer 6015B-Ni / 6015B-NiB with about 16gb ram and twin Intel Xeon quad core processors. It has a 160 gb hdd and is of the self contained blade type!

I have checked out the hardware and it checks out fine but every method i have used to load up a Windows installation has failed.

-USB thumbdrive
-PXE
-Hooking up a dvd drive through the internal cabling
-Hooking up an external floppy drive to load the installation from DOS prompt

As i said nothing is working, i am under the impression that this server is a lemon.

 

[Guest]

Does it give any errors?
What windows are you trying to install?

 

[Jacob117]

Does it give any errors?
What windows are you trying to install?

I am trying to install Windows Server 2008 R2 and there are no errors, the hardware will simply not let me boot from any device i attach to load the installation program.

The Bios log doesn't give any indication of an error, it just tries to constantly use PXE which i am unable to get working on my end. I am just not that good at deployed installs!

I tried hooking up my desktop and the server with a crossover cable but the cable is damaged. Any chance i can use a Router For a direct line so i can do a PXE? Or maybe an alternative to Windows Deployment Services that can be used from within Windows 7 that won't require me to change my Desktop OS?

 

[Guest]

Have you tried booting directly from the USB drive?

 

[Jacob117]

Yes that is what i tried, i used a tool to transfer the contents of the windows iso unto the drive and i made it bootable, the server won't even reckognize it when i press f11 to select a boot device but ti shows up in the bios

 

[Jacob117]

This tool has never given em any problems before int he past and has worked beautifully before, i also tried using a hdd that has a virtual CD-rom

 

[Guest]

Try in different USB slots.

 

[Jacob117]

ok, ill give it a shot. there are only two though and the device does light up and it shows up in bios just fine but wont let me boot into it.

 

[Jacob117]

It's not working still, i'm going to try out a different tool and try out other file systems. I have tried NTFS and FAT32, could it be the device is 16 GB

 

[Jacob117]

Ok there's an option in RUFUS that allows for higher compatibility for older bioses, i'm going to give that a shot and see what happens!

 

[Jacob117]

Nope, it's a no go!

 

[Jacob117]

It seems i had to press (x) in order to move things from the eight boot option to actually place them on the list, so that's why my usb drive never showed up. I am actually installing windows 2008 r2 now!

So i hope this will be saved for those who have issues with a SuperMicro server in the future.