Setting up a Compaq ProLiant DL380 from 2000

Overview, setup, and Windows 2000 install for a Compaq ProLiant DL380 Gen 1 from 2000. We'll also cover Compaq's solution to lights out management. Oh let's run Doom on it too.
Stuff I used in this video
IDE to Compact Flash Adapter: amzn.to/3PQuF3o
Molex to Floppy Adapter: amzn.to/3NJf035
Rack stuff
StarTech 25U Rack: amzn.to/3mEB7hS
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1U 24 Port Patch Panel: amzn.to/3Nm0bFa
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1U Rack Shelf: amzn.to/3oaDclT
Note: The above are Amazon affiliate links. It doesn't cost you extra, but I'll receive a commission which will help keep the content coming. I only link to things I've personally ordered.
Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

[@neil2402]

Used to work on these professionally back in the day. Yes the G1 was a bit clunky and the LO card a bit primitive, but things improved quite a bit with later generations. The G1 had the styling of earlier proliant models (400,800,1600 etc) and the SCU looks very EISA like! The G2 and later had a new look and feel and were much easier to work on. Thanks for the memories!

[@naikrovek]

USB floppy drives are not true floppy drives as far as those older computers are concerned. with USB floppy drives there is no real floppy controller, and they only handle 1.44MB or 720kB disk images, and they simply will not do non-standard things to a floppy disk, which is why there is a tool to create the floppies for you, instead of downloads of floppy images. The disk image creator from Compaq did some slightly special things to make one or more of those disks bootable which is not something that all USB floppies can do, if the computer you want to boot from the floppy is very old, such as the Compaq you're using here. You will almost certainly need to make those floppy disks with a real computer with a real, old floppy drive connected to either an integrated floppy controller, or a floppy controller on an ISA/PCI card.

[@meatpockets]

I worked at a job that bought these second hand and would throw them in a colo to rent out. They were too cheap to buy proper rail kits and had like 5-6 of these resting on some kind of rack mounted L bracket. One day we got a swarm of Nagios alerts in and I rushed down to take a look. Turns out the bracket blew out and all the severs were falling out the rack. There was so much weight that it forced the locked cabinets front door wide open. Good times…

[@johnpanzer2034]

My dad worked on these servers for HP and Compaq back in the day. He had one of these exact machines in his lab at his office so he could test software and SP bundles for customers. He had it running Windows Server 2003 when it first came out. Quite an impressive machine for its time. Yes, the Compaq BIOS utilities ran a very custom version of Windows 9x and before that, Windows 3.1 in older machines.

[@nathan9510]

If you need some more SCSI drives, I can ship 4-6 to you if you pay for the shipping. I have a bunch in HP/Compaq sleds of various sizes and speeds. All are 80 pin SCA SCSI.

[@kmickCSX]

I’m about to make some people feel old- I forgot that compaq used to be a company- I have a new proLiant and I had no idea compaq made these

[@huseyinfahriuzun2216]

at least now HP is smarter and using linux kernel for their bios and utilities

[@CammyFi]

The way your microphone picks the keyboard up louder than your voice is uncomfortable.

[@H3adcrash]

Me being the retro Compaq ProLiant fetishist that I am, I've tinkered enough with these to figure out you can USB boot and install operating systems if you plug a generic USB PCI card into the system, boot the Plop boot manager from floppy, and then select USB as boot device. It will then boot either Windows or Linux normally. If you're going to venture into Linux, these old systems have a fairly retarted BIOS, and will not find the boot partition if you install with automatic settings. So you have to manually set up the partition table, making sure to put the boot partition at the beginning of the drive.

[@arjovenzia]

I love the fact the CPU PSUs are on cards that look like they're removable. That's some impressive serviceability

[@markpriceful]

omg, so proud of that 40-bit SSL @

[@JMassengill]

I used to work for an authorized COMPAQ dealer in 2000/2001. Smart start was different. The worst part about running old java based hardware is finding the right version of java. (the ILO on the Dell R710 is also fun to get working for the same reason) I have a Cisco ASA 5510 in my home lab and it took forever to find the needed java files to run the ASDM.

[@hessex1899]

I found a gen 1 chassis with a live ILOM on my work's network last year. The system was off but the chassis was still racked, attached to network, and powered.

[@markpriceful]

That remote management / ILO card is pretty wild, glad to see you stuck with it and the old Java to make it work. Reminds me of that old meme "hey dog, we heard you like computers, so we got a computer for your computer"

[@smpstech]

I had one of these first generation DL380's and HP still sends me support alerts about them to this day. Pretty amazing.

[@timcsmedic2162]

I worked with those and some older stand up Compaq models. They are a weird beast. Especially running Novell 4.11 and 5. Cool to see those again.😊

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

It's so cool to see such retro hardware. I discovered your channel due to researching about some sun hardware. And subscribed!

[@jbgaud]

I assembled and configured a bucket load of those servers and tower aquivalent : the ML530. Usually they came partially mounted. We have to add the Smartarray controler, power supply and processors.

[@mikkelcalum6589]

I just got a Compaq Proliant 1600, Dual Pentium 300 mhz with 5 SCSI drives i array. I had the same issues with Bios and stuff. I installed Windows 2000 and made an ISO image of the SmartStart CD. Installed all drivers and software in Windows 2000. Worked perfectly with the Disk Array SCSI management.

[@RetroTechIIfx]

So the reason the bios is so odd on the old Proliant systems is due to their evolution from Compaqs EISA systems. This system configuration menu is lifted right off of any of the early 90s Proliant servers or Compaq EISA workstations. It provides a facility for reading EISA configs off of the floppy drive.