Hi,

After what looks like a successful installation of CentOS 5.0 (from installation disks) on a HP DL360 G4 server, the server does not start the operating system. It says it will boot from harddisk, but the only thing it returns is a flashing cursor.

I checked the filesystem with "Linux Rescue", and to me all files seem to be in place.

I also tried to reinstall the server with the latest HP Smartstart cd, but i was only able to choose from W2003 or W2008. No Linux available.

I have very little experience in troubleshooting linux, so any help will be appreciated.

Have you got hardware RAID setup on this system? If so, you need to configure the BIOS in the RAID adapter using the server setup tools that came with your machine.

Thanks for your reply. I will be back in my office on tuesday, and will check the bios settings.

Alternatively Raid maybe on and might need to be switched off, where I work we have a couple of hundred HP servers, I think it's the ML350 G5s and the entire lot came with raid cards that have zero linux support (no drivers or anything anywhere). Infact only certain versions of windows work on them. Just something that might be worth checking out also.

If that is the case, as r3sistance puts it, then you need to enable an option like "Emulate AHCI" in your BIOS somewhere...

The server is equipped with a smart array 6i controller. With the array utility i configure a RAID 1 logical disk. I checked the BIOS, but there is no option "emulate AHCI" or something similar.

Is it not possible that it has something to do with a bootloader?

It seems the bootloader is not installed correctly during installation.

See http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/...hreadId=816244

I did the following to get the OS booted:

• Boot the system from CD and enter "Linux rescue"
• chroot /mnt/sysimage
• grub-install /dev/cciss/c0d0
• in my case i needed to modify grub.conf, and change hd1 into hd0

Thanks all for your help.

Good stuff, glad you got sorted, and thanks for posting your solution.