Can't install bare metal Windows on B200 M6

[jonmiller5555]

Hi, I am running into a strange issue trying to install windows server 2022 on a new b200 M6 blade. I'll attach a picture of the error, but it says "Windows can't be installed on this disk. the computers hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure the disk's controller is enabled in the BIOS menu." I'll try to cover as much as I can without making this post super long, but I have been working on this a little each day for a couple weeks without coming up with a fix yet.

What makes this even worse for me is that I have the same setup in 2 data centers, and the first one I did works perfect, but the second one with seemingly identical settings is failing. I don't do bare metal install of Windows very often, but since the first one worked I would like to think i have some idea of what I'm doing, but I'm obviously missing something here.

I'm trying to boot from SAN, but I also have a couple NVMe drives on the server that will be used for a SQL temp DB and I even tried to use the local disks and it gets the same error. I do have a single path to the LUN zoned right now and I don't have any issues installing the Cisco VIC driver to see the LUN, those seem to be the most common issues when I have been searching for this issue.

Here is a list of some of the things I've tried, but at this point I don't even remember every step I've taken.

Tried several alterations to boot order.

decom and reack to reapply service profile. Reset to factory default as well to clear any setting that might be stuck wrong.

I tried several different diskpart commands to format the drive differently and make partitions for windows to install on.

I've deleted and remade the volume on the SAN several times.

I tried installing a different version of windows server and it fails in the same way.

I installed ESXi as a test, it installs and boot with no issues, so it seems to just be something Windows doesn't like.

I pulled the NVMe drives out to make sure they weren't causing some issue, same result.

I'm thinking this must be some issue with the boot order or some other BIOS setting, but i haven't tracked it down yet. TAC wasn't really helpful at all either in this case, but I still have a case open on this. Any suggestions people have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Jon 

[josoneal]

Hello Jon,

Can you provide more information about your setup? 1) for the working server and 2) for the non-working server.

Server Model:
CPU:
 UCSM Firmware:
Storage model (both local and SAN): 
Storage firmware:
Drivers installed:
Is Boot Option set to Legacy or UEFI mode?

Regards,

[jonmiller5555]

Everything is the same on both sides. B200 M6 servers, Xeon Gold 6342 CPUs, 4.2.2c firmware, Pure storage SAN, local drives are Cisco NVMe, drivers installed during windows PE install are from the Cisco pack "ucs-bxxx-drivers-windows.5.1.0a", I do the Cisco VIC driver for server 2022, and its legacy boot.

[Kirk J]

Wonder if there is something about the Pure storage Luns that require UEFI boot... I know NVME drives require UEFI to be a boot source...

Kirk...

[josoneal · Accepted solution]

Hey Jon,

Check your SAN boot policy and ensure that your WWPNs are configured to the correct adapters. You can check this by using the commands below and double checking zoning on your storage switch and storage array. Make sure that your nameserver queries are presenting the correct target wwpns. Also double check that LUN are not showing as "access failure".

Can you also confirm target LUN is being seen properly? 

• Reboot the server.
• Hit F6 to enter boot menu.
• While in Boot menu, launch a CLI session and run the following commands and share with me.

Example: For adapter 3/3/1

• UCS-B(local-mgmt)# connect adapter 3/3/1
• adapter 3/3/1# connect
• adapter 3/3/1 (top):1# attach-fls
• adapter 3/3/1 (fls):1# lunlist

For adapter 3/3/2

• UCS-B(local-mgmt)# connect adapter 3/3/2
• adapter 3/3/2# connect
• adapter 3/3/2 (top):1# attach-fls
• adapter 3/3/2 (fls):1# lunlist
  
  
  I have attached a SAN boot troubleshooting guide for more info.

[jonmiller5555]

Thanks to Josh for all his help. What it ended up being is that I had the correct WWPNs configured in the boot policy, but they were assigned to the wrong adapter. So all I had to do in the end was press move down on the primary target in the san boot policy to make it secondary and click save and it all functioned like I would expect.