When troubleshooting a computer that beeps when trying to start the computer, usually referring to the motherboard manual or OEM User manual is the quickest way to find out what is causing the computer from not booting. Here is a couple of links to motherboard and OEM beep codes.
Tech Republic - Beep codes for desktops
Dell has a nice utility (make_driver_dir.exe) included on their setup disk that copies drivers for a specific O/S and platform (their servers) into a directory of your choice. Utility is on the Installation and Server Management (bootable) cd in the cdrom_drive\server_assistant\driver_tool\bin\ directory.
usage:
-h | –help prints this message
-d | –dest_dir <dir> destination directory to extract drivers to
* -i | –input_dir <dir> source Server Assistant CD
-p | –platform <plat> limits the drivers extracted to the specified
platform
-o | –os <os name> extracts drivers for specified operating
system only
-v | –verbose enable verbose output
-q | –quiet suppress verbose output
-y | –yum create yum repo from resulting dest (for extract
only) Requires /usr/bin/createrepo for new format
yum repo and /usr/bin/yum-arch for old format yum
repo. Will run both binaries if found.
–extract extract drivers
–info provides information about platform/operating
system support (default)
–hardlink hardlink all destination files (saves space, only
works if operating system supports hardlinks)
Action to take is a required parameter. Specify one of: [–extract | –info]
– Required parameters are denoted by an asterisk (*)
Example Syntax:
“”"
#– future stuff needs to be first
from __future__ import generators
windowsSyntax = “C:\> make_driver_dir -i d:\ -d c:\drv -p pe1855 -o w2003 –extract\n”
linuxSyntax = “$ ./make_driver_dir.py -i /media/cdrom -d ~/drivers/ -p pe1855 -o rh40 –extract\n”
Past editions of operating systems used 32-bit addressing schemes, which effectively limited support for single disk devices to 2 terabytes (TB) or less. The GUID Partition Table (GPT) is a replacement for the older MBR. Currently, x86-based computer systems use a legacy BIOS that will not support the use of GPT drives as a boot device. However, depending on the operating system, support has been added for GPT drives as additional data volumes only.
Based on the limitations around booting to drives larger than 2TB in size and the other OS limitations, Dell will not ship any servers with a RAID configuration larger than 1.8TB. If an array greater than 1.8TB is specified in the system configuration, then the system will ship with several RAID slices that are each 1.8TB or less.
This Dell Community forum post details the process of creating RAID arrays larger than 2TB:
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=pes_hardrive&thread.id=25686
Instructions to convert a disk to a GPT Disk for one large > 2TB partition (Win2k3 SP1):
