Windows Server 2008 R2 Std

[Yynxs]

Well I decided to learn a bit about servers so I went out to GSA and found a pair and managed to win them for $186.

COMPUTER SERVER DELL POWEREDGE R710 INTEL XEON
Item Description: Pictures are shown with hard drives installed in units, however, they have been removed!!!
PE R710 with Chassis for Up to 8, 2.5-Inch Hard Drives (224-8461)
PowerEdge R710 Shipping (330-4124) 96GB Memory (12x8GB), 1333MHz Dual Ranked RDIMMs for 2 Procs,
Optimized (317-5344) Embedded Broadcom, GB Ethernet NICS with TOE (430-1764) Embedded Broadcom, GB Ethernet NICS with TOE and ISCSI Offload Enabled (430-2970)
Dual Intel Xeon X5680, 3.33Ghz, 12M Cache, Turbo, HT, 1333MHz Max Mem (317-4104) PowerEdge R710 Heat Sinks for 2 Processors (317-1213) PERC H700 Integrated RAID Controller, 1GB NV Cache, x8 (342-1615) Power Saving BIOS Setting (330-3491) Internal SD Module with 1GB SD Card (341-8738) Intel Gigabit ET NIC, Quad Port, Copper, PCIe-4 (430-0657) iDRAC6 Enterprise (467-8648) DVD ROM, SATA, INTERNAL (313-9092) Riser with 2 PCIe x8 + 2 PCIe x4 Slot (320-7886) Dual High Output Power Supply Redundant, 870W (330-3475). CONDITION UNKNOWN, REPAIRS MAY BE REQUIRED, INSPECTION ENCOURAGED, SOLD AS IS. ​

Sounded good until I shipped one of them to me and it was $350 for shipping and GSA lied, it had 2.4GHz Xeons instead of 3.3. Some shopping found I could get a 2.4GHz unopened for 699 from a kentucky recycler on eBay with 6TB of HD space and all the parts. Oh well.

Said all that to know the background. When I booted, it took a while to get through the 106G of ECC RAM and then would not boot to a system. Downloaded and burned a Knoppix and an Ubuntu DVD to try to look at the HDs. Neither would see them and the Knoppix (from their site) would not even finish loading. The standard Ubuntu AMD64 Desktop would not see the full RAM past 64G on one CPU and 'file system' would not let me look at the hard drives at all. The server Ubuntu would not load a workspace to view the HDs but said it could install. Did not because I'm trying to get Win08 Server Running.

Some reading at technet.microsoft seems to indicate there is a DVD or two required for initialization (of course none came from gov because I didn't know enough to ask for them). I went to MS to try to see if there is a download and there is an ISO but it requires installation of MS download manager. Experience in the past shows this causes major problems with the system you're using for the download (setting aside MS's normal activities with WLive), so I didn't.

I told you all that to say this. I'm thinking my ignorance level exceeds the basic requirements for experimentation.
a) What online courses do you recommend to start learning WinServer08 hardware and O/S? I don't mind paying for them.
b) Where would I get the DVD or ISO for Win Server 08 R2 1-4CPU 5Cit? The government did mention 'the subscription has run out. you do realize that?' so I'm guessing I have to pay for something there too. There's copies on ebay for 399. Mostly I just want to boot or know it won't boot and can install another server o/s.

 

[DelJo63]

Well, you will not be able to get an install disk for Server 2008 and buying the latest and greatest will be very expensive.

Suggest you get a copy of the Knoppix CD which is bootable and will run w/o install as a first step. Don't know why you prior attempt at Knoppix failed, suspect there are issues with the hardware - - did you just stall or were there diagnostics just prior to failing?

 

[Yynxs]

The knoppix dvd: from both: http://www.cise.ufl.edu/ and http://knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/...k=ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu/pub/mirrors/knoppix/ and using the FTP anonymous download gave a Jan16 and an Oct16 version. Both failed. During bootup, both attemtped to contact a USB and were unable to then said the images were corrupt. Both were differently dated and differently numbered. I did not try to run them on another machine with less RAM. Suspect the 106Gigs of ECC RAM may be the problem or the Server is somehow splitting the RAM by sharing between the CPUs and Knoppix desktop doesn't know how to handle one or the other. Don't have enough knowledge to ask the question or look at the hardware to decide.

According to this eBay advertisement: http://www.ebay.com/itm/MSFT-Server-Window-2008-R2-Standard-5-CAL-Server-License-/291991444736 and this Amazon advertisement: https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Wi...83813239&sr=8-10&keywords=Windows+Server+2008, should be about 150 bucks or less. I don't mind paying but I have a product key on the server including virtualization package and figure just getting the DVDs should get me started. I checked the MS website and they'll let me download the iso IF and only if, I let them put the download manager on my downloading system. As I said, that causes major problems if you've cleaned and shut down all the Microsoft junk.

Again, I don't know enough to know where I've failed. I do know Knoppix wouldn't boot there. Someone with a similarly large RAM dual processor server may be able to say the failure is in the download or the hardware I have because it works on theirs but I'm staying with two separate downloads and DVD burns failing. (Just for grins and giggles, I also tried Ubuntu i386, no joy)

 

[DelJo63]

I would PULL some memory out of the beast and retry - - reduce to 64gb or less.

"attempted to contact a USB and were unable to then said the images were corrupt" - - hmm; most strange as the AutoConfig is designed to understand 'missing devices' - - the so called corruption is an error processing code path failure.

Memory ECC: so what, the OS is not directly sensitive to ECC, so accessing or sharing it should not be an issue.

 

[Yynxs]

Thank you. Did not know ECC memory does not affect the O/S directly. Have some vague memory from the 80s or 90s of ECC memory being a problem with Windows. I'm old, could be a faulty memory trail.

I tend to be conservative about pulling stuff so I took another fork before pulling parts out of the main body and dealing with the resultant BIOS arguments. I ordered a couple of the HD hot swap cartridges online and will pull the current ones (presuming they have something valuable (they're 450G 15k RPM seagates btw)) and use some of the 40 or so 800G HDs I have laying around to try to see if the Ubuntu Server will load with all the other stuff (10 NICS, et al). That is a fork in the path though.

Still looking for a recommendation on where to start to learn about what I need to learn to run a Windows Server. Took a look at the adverts here on TS for the Server Center course set but I'm worried those are the same as the last time I bought here and can only be taken using Adobe Flash installed. Any words there would help. The cartridges are due sometime today since I overnighted the order and I'll let you know an update on Ubuntu, especially since the RAID setup is hardware based. Thank you for the thoughts so far.

 

[DelJo63]

I would continue attempting to boot from CD or USB as a test environment BEFORE investing in 2008 Srv install.
What's unique to your hardware is:

• server class frame
• ecc memory
• high ram installed
• dual processors
• RAID hardware (I assume an enclosure with SCSI HDs)

Can you access BIOS and down one of the processors?

Disconnect the external HDs

 

[Yynxs]

Cheetah 15k.7 SAS, SAS 6 6GBps. 450G Pair of them. And therein shows my ignorance. Didn't remotely considier SAS HDs. So much for a stack of 800G SATAs. I'll see what a couple of them will set me back on the web and get them on the way. I can always raid them in if I get the Windows Server up.

The HDs cartridges are hot swap. Just press and lever out. Unfortunately, they're what I was hoping to look at with Linux to see if they had the 2008 installed and just not bootable or requiring some 'tricks' to make the server come up.

Thank you for that insight. Going through the BIOS now. WTBTY

 

[DelJo63]

Playing with Raid.

Boot from an internal, non-raid HD and ensure a backup is available at all times.
Server data goes on external Raid-1, -10 and you STILL need backups. Raid is a fail-safe/reliability feature, NOT an alternative to backups.

The Cheetah's have 'Ultra320 SCSI interface models available', so check the cable attachment to see what you have.
Hot-Swap is a nice feature, I know that's on SCSI controllers, but not sure on the SATA.

 

[Yynxs]

Bit lost here. The server is using a PERC 6.1 Raid controller. HDs are plugged in the front with Hot Swap cartridges. The only SATA listed is connected to the DVD Drive. I'm intending to buy some SAS hard drives to put into the Hot Swap cartridges I already bought and I'm buying them so I can experiment with other server OSes. They're pretty cheap about 40 a piece for the same thing/type I have now: http://www.ebay.com/itm/450GB-15K-S...641591?hash=item4afc9bb077:g:5BAAAOSwGYVXBYAG and if the picture is correct, they come with the hotswap cartridge attached. Separately I found sound 7.5K 2TBs for 60 ea and 3TBs for 85 each.
But those are down the road for creating NAS style in house storage after I get a handle on how a Win08 (or something useful) server works.
Like I said, I'm too ignorant to know what questions to ask or how to plan and I'm chasing education plans and what the basics are. Also, I have two of these things. I left one at the daughter's house in another state. If all goes reasonably well I'll send her the makings of a decent in house storage for her place.
Just tried the Knoppix again with the HDs removed. No joy. It just doesn't want to boot here. Also, switched the boot mode from the SCSI to UEFI. Still no joy. Have a feeling I'm just punching the buttons to see what explodes..but onward.
A thought occurs that you may be seeing this as a desktop type and not a blade server. It is a blade server cross section.

 

[DelJo63]

"A thought occurs that you may be seeing this as a desktop type and not a blade server. It is a blade server cross section."
I understand the differences, but haven't had my hands on a blade server.

If you burned a DVD for Knoppix, take it to your PC and boot it to see what a success looks like in the auto config processing. That might give you insight to where it's failing.

Would not expect UEFI on any server, but who knows. The BIOS ref to SCSI is interesting too.

here's the ref on the Perc Raid controller

 

[Yynxs]

Thank you for the link. It provides some interesting expansion capability if I actually have W08Svr on those HDs. I'll wait for the new HDs and go spend some time or just buy a copy. I just booted tails on it with a USB stick. That was fun. Tails does not like a wireless mouse and I'm having VR nausea from the looking at the screen the last ten mins. As you can see, I've been at this about 12 hours straight so I'm going to go get some rest and return in the night hours. Based on that, I also may be able to make a Knoppix stick and boot that. I'll let you know. Thank you again for the attention to this.