Installing Ubuntu 10.10 Server on the HP ProLiant Microserver using bootable USB

As I talked about in my earlier post, I bought myself an HP ProLiant Microserver and configured the BIOS to allow me to boot from USB.  This caused problems as the frustratingly simple message is shown:

No Common CD-ROM drive was detected

This is how I got past it:

First you’ll need two USB sticks:

• A Bootable USB with the Ubuntu 10.10 Server distribution, created using a program like UNetbootin
• A non-bootable USB with the same version Ubuntu 10.10 Server ISO file.  This ISO file should not be expanded in any way, it should just be the ISO file itself.  I have mine formatted as FAT32.

The steps are:

1. Insert the Bootable USB only and boot into the Ubuntu server install, and follow the instructions until the ‘No Common CD-ROM drive was detected‘ message is displayed
2. Hit Alt-F2 and then Enter to enter the console
3. Tail the System log file through the command: tail -f /var/log/syslog
4. At this point, insert the second non-bootable ISO USB stick
5. The device will be registered and the registration information will be printed in the system log that is currently being tailed.
   Notice the device is allocated at sde and more specifically it is allocated as sde1
6. Create a directory to mount the non-bootable USB stick to: mkdir /media/usbdrive
7. Mount the non-bootable USB to the created directory: mount -t vfat /dev/sde1 /media/usbdrive
8. Create a symbolic link on the ISO file to ‘mount’ it as a new device: ln -sf /media/usbdrive/ubuntu-10.10-server-amd64.iso /dev/sr0
9. Hit Alt-F1 to go back to installer
10. When prompted to Load CD-ROM drivers from removable media choose No
11. When prompted to Manually select a CD-ROM module and device choose Yes
12. When prompted for Module needed for accessing CD-ROM, press Enter, making no changes
13. For the prompt Device file for accessing the CD-ROM enter the device location of the ISO file: /dev/sr0
14. Continue installation!
15. While the partitioner loads the following message may be displayed:
    Warning: The installer has detected that the following disks have mounted partitions: /dev/sde
    Select No as this is the ISO USB and doesn’t matter if it is mounted.
16. One more thing, be careful not to install to the /dev/sde device location, as this is the non-bootable USB location!

Hope this helps!

Booting from USB on HP ProLiant Microserver

I recently took the plunge and bought an HP ProLiant Microserver.  It’s sold with no operating system or CD/DVD drive, so after picking a solid OS (Ubuntu Server 10.10 64 bit) I set about playing about with installing it without buying a CD/DVD drive.  Call me cheap but I’d only use it once and never use again.  Besides, booting from CD/DVD is a bit last century isn’t it?  I found I had some issues with actually booting from USB, so here are the important settings.

In the Advanced tab, the USB Mass Storage Device Configuration setting should be set to Auto, or Hard Disk – but it can’t be the obvious CD-ROM option… it’s odd, but I couldn’t get this to work.

Next, in the Boot tab, the Removable Drives setting should be modified so that our bootable Ubuntu USB drive is the first drive in the list.  This tells the BIOS that we want our specific USB drive to be the primary removable drive and is important if you have more than one removable drive attached to the many USB ports on the microserver!

Last, in the Boot tab, the Boot device priority setting should be modified so that the bootable Ubuntu USB drive (selected as the primary removable drive) is the first priority.

Save the settings and reboot – the server now boots into the Ubuntu installer!  Now as I discovered, this causes problems in the Ubuntu installation with the message:

No Common CD-ROM drive was detected

This I discuss in my next post.