IBM Netfinity 5000

[Jack Lauman]

Those machines came with "Smart Start" packages like the older Compaq 
servers.

You need to boot up with the IBM NetFinity "SmartStart" disk and install 
a service partition for NT4. Compaq Presario DL-360 rackmount servers 
don't have a BIOS than can save parameters, as I recall from working on 
the NetFinity 5000 years ago at Gannett, they don't either. The startup 
parameters are stored on the service partition of the boot disk created 
with "SmartStart".

These machines were produced abt. 1996 so I doubt if they will support a 
DVD drive.

The IBM website may have the NetFinity "SmartStart" disk as an .iso 
image on their website... Compaq does.

If this is a rack mount machine there should be 3 hot swap bays in the 
center of the front panel. They're attached to an embedded RAID 
controller so don't forget to configure them.

Hope this helps,

Jack

On 12/25/2009 09:37, Ashley M. Kirchner wrote:
>
> I have an old Netfinity 5000 server that used to run WinNT and I'd like
> to install Fedora on it, any "recent" version would do (basically, from
> 10 up). I started with a Fedora 12 DVD and it booted partway ... froze,
> then the screen said 'Cannot find root partition.' So I decided to try a
> Fedora 10 disc instead, same result. Tried using an F10 LIVE KDE disk,
> same thing. It just won't boot up.
>
> Hardware wise, it has 2 SCSI drives in it, and an IDE DVD drive. A dual
> head Matrox card has been put in to replace the original planar video on
> the board. Any suggestions where I should start diagnosing this beast?
> Thanks!
>
> -- A
>