HP Proliant DL180 G5, Windows Server 2003 (English Version)

A True Story:

A couple of days ago, along with two other IT colleagues, we had a project of installing six network sites. On the five of those sites, the domain would be built on the new HP Proliant DL180 G5 rack mounted servers. At the time of the operating system installation (Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition) from the integrated CD drive, when we reached the ”setup is starting windows” point, and after a long delay of some minutes (normally this wait won’t last more than a minute or so), a blue screen appears with Stop Error Hex Code “Stop 0×0000007B”.

Explanation:

First of all let’s get things clear. The point of failure appears during the Text-Mode portion of the O/S installation procedure. It’s exactly after loading the basic drivers and installation files and before the ”License Agreement” which is then followed by the partitioning and formatting procedure. The specified stop code “Stop 0×0000007B” is displayed when the O/S is not able to identify a certain hardware subsystem or peripheral. At this point the installation routine builds the HAL. For further information please read the related Microsoft Knowledge Base Article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103 which in our case provided us only a theoretical approach to the problem. The official HP support site had only general instructions and guidelines. Searching through Google didn’t help much, because the DL180 G5 is a very new server model. So, we had to try the classic troubleshooting methodology “Play & Learn”…

Solution Procedure:

Which things DIDN’T worked:

• Firmware Updates to all hardware subsystems (BMC, BIOS, RAID Controllers etc.)
• Drivers for RAID Controllers by pressing F6 during starting up from the installation CD

At this point I have to note that we had “suspected” that this is a Controller issue, because this is an old story about disk controller drivers (especially RAID) and Windows Server O/S’s.

The next step was to start plugging out some hardware. There were no external peripherals connected, so this had to be an “internal” problem. Because the integrated RAID controller provided by HP with the DL180 didn’t had the features we wanted for the deployment (most integrated controllers don’t), we had installed a secon: The HP E200/128 on which we built a RAID5 array of three SATA disks. So we pulled out the E200 as a first suspect along with a second NIC in PCI-ex slot. BSOD again…

Let’s make a second note here: The “bigger” HP Proliant Servers support automated O/S installation with Smart Start CD. The Proliant DL180 G5 has no such “luxury”. O/S installation has to be done manually.

Next we tried to load BIOS’s Fail-Safe Defaults just in case… but the blue screen insisted. So, logic directed us to charge guilty the integrated Controller. We disabled it in BIOS, and because the integrated CD drive we needed to perform the Windows Server setup was attached on it, we used an EXTERNAL USB CD drive to proceed. We also plugged the E200 back and…

IT WORKED!

Question: Since the DL180 does NOT support installation with the Smart Start CD, and let us say that we DIDN’T had the additional E200, HOW would we be able to install O/S with ONLY the integrated controller? Don’t bother this is a rhetoric question…

After about 12 hours of troubleshooting the system had it’s own operating system.

Learning Point: New server models (especially the entry “cheap” ones) have various “issues” so be careful out there…

P.S. We didn’t choose or configured the specified server. We just asked for an extra controller (E200) to build our RAID5 array (thank God).