OS Install on Dell PowerEdge 6650


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I recently acquired a Dell PowerEdge 6650 but cannot get it to boot the OS (WS2008) from a USB. There is a floppy and CD (neither seem to be of any value in loading the OS). There is a SCSI RAID and a SCSI utility, but I am lost. HD devices don't show up in System Setup (F2) either. Any ideas?

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I recently acquired a Dell PowerEdge 6650 but cannot get it to boot the OS (WS2008) from a USB. There is a floppy and CD (neither seem to be of any value in loading the OS). There is a SCSI RAID and a SCSI utility, but I am lost. HD devices don't show up in System Setup (F2) either. Any ideas?

I've never used that unit, but you won't see the HDDs in the bios as they will be plugged into the PERC (I guess since its a dell) card via the backplane, so you will need to configure the array in the PERC utility first, then install the OS. I would be suprised if that couldn't boot from a usb stick, you may have to dig through the bios for the boot order. Otherwise just write a DVD....? Edit: Sorry just saw that it was a CDRom..., maybe hang an ide dvd-rom out of the chassis for the install and then remove it.

We've got a few of them at work, to get OSes to actually detect single disk's we eventually resorted to setting them up as a Single Drive RAID0 config. We're running CentOS on these, runs nicely. I used a NetInstall via CD-R.

USB Booting is not supported from what I understand.

  • 2 weeks later...

As previously mentioned, it's the PERC utility you need to use rather than the SCSI utility - it should be Ctrl+M during startup. Here is Dell's documentation related to configuring RAID - http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/raid/perc4sc/en/ug/chap5.htm#1054160

Once that's done, I would recommend booting from the Dell Systems Build disc (ISO can be downloaded here - http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R181938&SystemID=PWE_P4_1900&servicetag=&os=WNET&osl=en&deviceid=17782&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=1&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=36&fileid=248199), this will automatically install the drivers for you when you perform the OS install. You can also configure the RAID through this, if you'd prefer not to use the onboard utility.

Run the dell open manage software to install the os. It will be able to configure the raid if you have a raid controller. If you don't have an option for perc then you don't have a raid controller. That adaptec controller was probably for a tape drive.

Odd; going by the service tag listed in the BIOS screenshot, the server did originally ship with a PERC4 controller.

Is there definitely no other prompts? Don't press F10, just let the server carry on booting (Press F1 at that memory prompt if you've still got OS Install mode enabled) and see what else comes up.

  • 3 weeks later...
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