Thanks. The video isn't blank, it's just horribly dim because the lighting, frankly, sucks in here. I kind of figured that out, though on this model, F12 gets you into the options menu; seemingly F2 is system setup, F10 is system Services, F11 is the bios boot manager, but F12 gets you into those options to begin with, like you said. When I press F11, everything comes up but USB, so I'm wondering if it's not available since I didn't enable it in the Bios as suggested before? Or, I read something on the internet that if you select boot from the hard drive, though there are a ton of hard drives connected via USB to this server, you can right arrow and then there is another set of options, and USB is in there? What was that article talking about? -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 6:35 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Has anyone around here booted a Dell PowerEdge server from USB before? Hi, I am very familiar with these types of servers, unfortunately the Youtube video is blank so I can't see what is going on. When you unplugged the drive the system was still in POST, it doesn't actually try and boot until after the remote access card has initialised. The sequence for all this is: - Memory test - BIOS screen with Dell logo. - CPU and RAM information. - On some servers the SATA port status are displayed, this is what I think your friend was referring to. - NIC firmware initialisation. - RAID controller or disk initialisation - IDRAC/remote access card initialisation. - It then tries to boot. When you get the Dell logo on the screen, in top right hand corner there is a BIOS function key map. This is something like: F2: BIOS setup F10: System Services (Dell's answer to SmartStart) F11: PXE boot F12: boot menu You need to press the options when they come up after the Dell logo, once you press F12, the option changes to show you are entering the relevant option, you wait around 20-30 seconds after starting the machine up, and press F12 then, it will then go into boot menu. Some other key combinations are: Ctrl+s at NIC initialisation: configure some NIC specific options. Ctrl+R at RAID initialisation: configure the RAID controller, get RAIDs configured etc. Ctrl+E at IDRAC initialisation: configure DRAC settings. Hope this helps. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: 11 November 2013 20:36 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Has anyone around here booted a Dell PowerEdge server from USB before? Oops. My YouTube channel is: http://youtube.com/user/thechromebuster -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 3:34 PM To: 'blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org' Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Has anyone around here booted a Dell PowerEdge server from USB before? Hi all, I'm curious if this has ever been done by any of you guys. I'm trying to figure out how to do this with my server right now, and I can't. I have a video up on YouTube (my sighted friend is reading the options to me as we move along), so if anyone can offer feedback via the video, it would be great. I can only get the server to boot consistently from the hard drive; I don't see an option for USB. Any feedback is much appreciated. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins