I finally got the 1950 up and running for my boss today, and I think I may have figured out what was causing the issue, if you happen to run into this issue with the OpenManage 5.3 CD and newer Dell 1950’s, when during the install it asks if you want to install the server assistant (5th or 6th step) uncheck that box, I believe that is/was what was causing the issue (at least for me).  I have not tried this with another server, but I will when I get a chance.  Wh00t.

Technorati Tags: dell 1950, openmanage, server assistant

Ok,

So I finally got the stupid machine up and running, but I made a huge assumption that I shouldn’t have, I have built linux servers, but this is only the fourth or so time that I have built a windows server and with the openmanage (Dells server utility disk) to boot. So the drama is that when I was going through the setup (and yes this is stupid) when it asked me if the boot partition should be 12 GB, I was like yeah that sounds about right. I didn’t realize that the *boot* partition is the c:\ drive and that made it only 12GB in size.

Now this box is for my boss to have a little sandbox to play around in, with a certain application (which there is some side story here, but i’ll get to that later). Ok, so I didn’t realize till he was installing said application that there was only 12GB on the harddisk(s - 2 250 RAID 1), and knew something was wrong. So back to the drama, the boot disk for the 1950 (openmanage 5.3) only likes to work some of the time, 80% of the time it asks me to insert the OM 5.3 disk (that is already in the drive bay), so one of my coworkers (and mentor by the way) overheard a conversation and was curious why I thought that if I booted the cd multiple times I’d get different results (definition of insanity is doing the same task/thing over and over again expecting a different result) so that led to some laughs (though I think most of my coworkers think I have a nut or two loose anyways). I digress I am getting sidetracked (which isn’t unusual) one of the times I had booted the cd I got the prompt for the windows 2003 server disk (and that’s how I got the damn machine installed).

Here’s the side story for the application, I am installing exchange for my boss to play around with, and we have the uber m$ support so we have all the disks, except the 32bit version of exchange. Unfortunately there isn’t a common sense error message as it spits out “The disk in drive D:\ is valid, it’s just not built for the processor you are running on” (not a direct quote but close enough). Now as I did one would assume that (there I go with assuming again - really got to break that habit) it would have a label somewhere on the disk, but NO - fat freakin chance. We finally figured it out by downloading and installing the 32bit version and trying to install the 64bit version, and realized that if we had paid closer attention to the freakin disk name (something like EXBLAZD64) we would have seen from the end number that it was 64bit. Anyways I have another chance to get the mofo up and running tomorrow, and hopefully all of the software will play nice.

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Now playing on Pandora: LTJ Bukem - Tranquillity To Earth
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Technorati Tags: dell 1950, exchange, m$, windows server 2003, woot, zoe bell

I work for a large company as a jr. systems administrator and I noticed something the other day about the difference in mindset between those who work in helpdesk (some might say tier 1) as opposed to those that work in system administration (tier 2 or 3 depending on whom you ask). Don’t get me wrong I have a great amount of respect for all of the people that I work with, they are all great and very very knowledgeable, we just see the worlds in different ways.

I have been trying to install a server for my boss who wants a playground (he used to be the IT director for another subsidiary of the company that I work for) and it’s not a difficult request, standard Dell 1950 shouldn’t be too difficult, I got it racked, cabled, labeled and switchport turned on and good to go. So I go to install the OS using the standard OpenManage Server Assistant CD and blah, it posts fine, the bios sees the disks just fine (2 250GB disks Raid 1), but the OpenManage is unable to see the boot device. So I have a ton of different people look at it after trying to troubleshoot it on my own, and no dice. These guys actually go into the startup code (which is written in python) and start actually debugging it from there, still no dice. We all know that it’s a driver issue to due with the PERC raid card (6/i, I believe but don’t quote me) as this isn’t the first time that we have run into the issue with dells and their damned PERC cards.

So we have this guy that works in helpdesk that is a registered Dell tech, so I give him a call and ask if he can take a look at it, so he comes over grabs it, then the next day calls and says that it might have just been a bad disk (CD). So he boots it up fine and it sees everything but he gets to the install OS and that’s where he’ll stop (only for us mind you as they support all the end users). I was just fascinated by the viewpoints of the too different groups, our group tried from a hardware / system level and he went straight to the most fundamental aspects of the system. I know that I have learned a valuable lesson from this and will continue to remember that sometimes the K.I.S.S. principle is there for a reason. As I am a systems admin, this will probably be an ongoing thing (and junior to boot so I have a lot to learn).

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Now playing on Pandora: Planet Smashers - Trip And Fall
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Technorati Tags: , dell, dell 1950, helpdesk, perc, raid 1, sysadmin, systems admin