Boot UCS C240 M5 from 12G RAID Virtual Drive

[dbooth]

On a standalone C240 M5 server, have been able to configure Virtual Drives under 12G RAID Controller and set one of them as a Boot Drive, but cannot see controller as a boot option in BIOS or in boot menu.  In BIOS, under Advanced > LOM and PCIe Slots Configuration, Boot Mode is showing as UEFI and under PCI OpROM Configuration, I see PCIe SlotID: MRAID OpROM is Enabled but Option ROM Status is Not Loaded.

Thanks.

[Kirk J · Accepted solution]

Greetings.

Bios/legacy mode, and UEFI mode are more/less mutually exclusive.

If you are creating a boot virtual drive/array that is less than 2TB and does not have 4Kn sector drives, then you should be able to set the PCI-E slot mode to legacy, overall boot mode to legacy, and then create a boot order for local disk, referencing the HBA slot.

During post you should see the option ROM for the 12Gb controller, mention that 1 or more drives handled by 'bios'.

If you want to have UEFI boot mode, then initially your boot order won't list anything referencing the raid controller/VD.  Once you set your overall boot mode to UEFI,, run the OS installer, the OS installer actually adds a UEFI boot table entry for the OS that points to the OS UEFI boot partition that gets created (usually a 100MB one).  The next time the server is rebooted, you would then see a boot item entry for the OS.

Thanks,

Kirk...

[18436572]

I found this older solution you provided thoughtful and I have a question about it. I have a hot spare bare metal C240. I need to move my full system image over to this hot spare that is brand new out of box. My system is less than 2Tb with a newly created RAID 1 VD and a fully open source OS. I can convey that image onto my newly created Virtual Drive. But, how do generate a boot entry for this to boot from the newly moved system image - without running a OS Installer and remain (or return to) UEFI mode? This is a tested restore method for us on other platforms. Thanks for your time. 

[Kirk J]

If I understand your question correctly, you are not moving your disks&VD over to a new server, but are asking about some sort of partition/disk cloner?

Your BIOS, while in legacy(non-uefi) mode will check your designated boot device(CIMC configured boot order), which should be the PCI-E slot/HBA slot containing the 12GB SAS raid controller, and scan the disk/VD for a boot record.  Assuming your diskcloning tool has correctly recreated partion(s), and correctly recreated master boot sector/MBR, the boot process should proceed.

In some cases you may need to reinstall the boot loader (i.e. grub) into the MBR via rescue mode, if the imaging/cloning software didn't do this correctly.

You will also want to go into the LSI/Broadcom raid controller option ROM utility, and make sure the VD you have created, and reimaged, is marked with the 'bootable' flag.  I think you can probably do this through the storage tab in the CIMC as well.

Kirk...