DL380 Gen9 - Boot from SD

nutcase

nutcase

nutcase

Soldato
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18 Oct 2002
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7,622
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SX, unfortunately
Got a new toy at work, but struggling already :(

Want to run Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 on an official (and supported) 32GB microSD card. I've followed these instructions to the letter:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee731893(v=ws.10).aspx

I've even done this on a G6 to try and it worked fine.

I found that booting from SD on a Gen 9 requires legacy boot, so that was set. And also USB 3.0 support disabled as HP reccomend in a Spiceworks thread.

What happens is I get the initial spinning circle of dots so I know it's booting - but then I get a BSOD with the error of BOOT_DEVICE_INACCESSIBLE which is not very helpful. I've started a support case with HP but whilst waiting - any else got any ideas? :)

Thanks :)
 
Thanks - I'm not using intelligent provisioning as the card should be ready to go. When I've done it on G6s running the SPP after it's booted sorts out the drivers, but I guess perhaps with the newer hardware it needs something sooner. The SD slot runs over a USB connection (which I guess is why it needs the USB 3.0 disabling first) and the OS itself is on a VHD so perhaps it needs something to be able to access the VHD?
 
It definitely attempts to boot from the card as the small circle of spinning dots shows for a while, but then it BSODs.

I did run the firmware update took in intelligent provisioning before trying but the only thing it found was for the NIC. I did check this morning and there is a new BIOS frm early this month so applied that but same error.

If I use a USB key it works fine, so really not sure why the SD fails.
 
Oops sorry - the first time I tried it there was a couple of disks in but then I took them out at the time I tried disabling USB 3 etc.

HP have escalated it now. And I'm just about to try the SD Card again after I've cloned the SD Card to it after using SPP to add all the HP specific stuff.
 
Hmm -

We have diagnosed this issue to be with the design difference between a G6 server and a Gen9 server. As a matter of fact this design change happened from Gen8 onwards where we introduced the HP Intelligent Provisioning (IP) feature. The HP IP runs from a nand chip which is on the same USB Bus as the SD card slot. This will not allow you to boot off the SD card. The solution for this is to use any HPE Gen8 / Gen9 certified USB Flash Drive. You will need to connect this to one of the internal USB ports. This will work just fine as this USB uses a separate Bus.
Click to expand...

Bit dissapointing that a certified card in a certified server won't boot. And also dissapointing that HP don't do a sufficient capacity USB stick.

Microsoft say to use a Windows to Go certified USB stick of which there are a few options.
 
Why a vendor lock in? It works with a Kingston USB stick - but not a genuine HP SD Card. They have broken a supposedly supported feature :(

I would prefer to use genuine HP flash memory but a MS certified USB stick should work just as well but will discuss my options with HP first.
 
Followup - ended up going back to installing the hypervisor on a separeate partition on the primary storage as unsurprisingly wouldn't support a non-HPE certified USB stick.

Very disappointing.
 
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