tms server problem

[Armand Daiguillon]

Hi all,

I've got a big problem that I hope someone can help me with.
My TMS server computer wont boot ....I was having an issue and was told to reboot it by the people who provide dcp's to try to fix the problem.
But now it wont boot to windows.
I'm hoping that my server configuration is a common one that hopefully people here are familiar with.
I have a Dell Poweredge R510 as my server, I can log into idrac and it shows all clear, no system issues.
When I check the raid utility in the bios screens it also shows no issue.
But at a certain point in "post" process before windows can load - it just hangs indefinitely and doesn't give an error.
Attached is a pic of where it hanging - I hope someone has seen this before who can help.

We've been closed for 3 months (as many of you were) and we've reopened to dismal attendance, I can barely pay the electric let alone get a tech out here to look at this.

Any help would be greatly appreciated !!!

Thanks !!!

[John Thomas]

Without knowing much about your system, I can only say that the most common failure I have seen on TMS servers is the RAID controller card.

If your network switch is connected to the server by a PCIe cable, try shutting down, unplugging that, and then trying to boot.

What was the issue you were addressing that prompted the reboot?

What version of Windows are you running? You should be able to boot from a Windows 10 flash drive and run the repair utilities, regardless of the Windows version you are running.

[Marcel Birgelen]

First, try to get into the LifeCycle Controller and update all your firmware, but especially the firmware of your iDRAC card as it might have become corrupted.

If that doesn't help, try removing it all together, this is what it should look like:

idracenterprise.jpg

If removing it helps, you can either operate it without iDRAC and lose the out-of-band management features or try to find an replacement. If removing doesn't help, the next possible suspect is the RAID/PERC controller.

[Armand Daiguillon]

Hi all,

Thanks for the suggestions.
Its working now. (huge relief)

The problem was that because of a very lengthy power failure the bios info was reset, so it was trying to boot from the wrong drive.
Usually it would give an error "cant find boot drive" or similar - but for whatever reason it chose to give no errors.

thanks !!

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

What issue were you having before you rebooted it? That could provide a better clue. I have quite a few of these in service plus some old 2950's, about 46 in all and and they are very bullet proof servers. Only hard disk failures in any of them... oh, and one power supply too on a 2950. On Dell servers if there is a real problem you will see an error number displayed on the front panel LDC display and you can look that number up in the tech literature. Also view the event log and see what is in it. This article covers two ways to do that. I hope this helps.

https://velocitytechsolutions.com/bl...redge-servers/

[Armand Daiguillon]

What issue were you having before you rebooted it? That could provide a better clue. I have quite a few of these in service plus some old 2950's, about 46 in all and and they are very bullet proof servers. Only hard disk failures in any of them... oh, and one power supply too on a 2950. On Dell servers if there is a real problem you will see an error number displayed on the front panel LDC display and you can look that number up in the tech literature. Also view the event log and see what is in it. This article covers two ways to do that. I hope this helps.

https://velocitytechsolutions.com/bl...redge-servers/

The UPS died because of an extended power outage and i'm guessing the bios battery isn't good - so with a cleared bios, it did not try to boot from the correct drive. No errors showed on screen or on the front panel - normally youd get a "can not boot from device" message, but in this case, just nothing. If it had given the proper error I would have been able to fix it a lot faster.

Changing the boot drive in the bios fixed the issue.


Thanks.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Yep! Makes complete sense. I am surprised there was no error on the LCD showing that dead battery. And the reason the film co said to reboot was to reset Filezilla. I have had customers shut it down from thev ask bar.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Good to see it's working again. We all can imagine how it feels to be confronted with (potentially) broken hardware when the pockets are running on empty due to the situation at hand.

What dazzles me is that you didn't see the RAID BIOS and it kept on hanging on the iDRAC. I've had a similar issue before and in this case, it was the iDRAC that was broken, Dell actually replaced the iDRAC module (not all mainboards do come with a separate module).

I've recently had similar issues with an HP server that had been powered down for the last few months due to the shop having to close. The problem was resolved by installing a new battery. The thing didn't boot, because it lost all kinds of settings, including some CPU configuration settings, but it did give a warning during the first boot that it couldn't load certain BIOS settings and reverted to a "default profile".