Tip : HP/Compaq - Unable to boot from USB

Hello,

I ran into trouble while trying to boot from the USB version of Open-e DSS.

I used to boot from 2 differents computers that have only one USB pinout (For 2 USB ports):

• HP/Compaq DX6100MT
• HP/Compaq DC5100S

Problem was :
When you want to boot from USB on those computers, the only way to do this is to unplug the USB front panel connector. And then plug the DSS Rom on the USB pinouts.
In the bios, the "USB boot" option was set to "enabled".

But when you reboot your computer, the BIOS says :"918 Error : Front panel disconnected".
And then, even if you press 'F9' to choose in the boot menu the USB device to boot from, it is simply impossible to boot.

I don't know if unplugging the front-panel deactivate the USB pinout, or if the pinout use a non standard disposition which is incompatible with the USB Rom module.

Solution was :
To solve the problem, i had to make a custom USB cable using an old standard USB cable to plug the DSS Rom into the standard USB front panel ports.
It works, but it's really for testing only.

Maybe there is a clean solution ?

PS : I know that those computers are not listed in the compatible hardware list ;) .

Thanks for the major effort. If you called HP, DELL or IBM they would inform you that it is not certified with there systems. PAIN!!! We have External USB cables that we sell to give you a clean solution. Contact your reseller.

Could you do our engineers a big favor?? We are investigating issues why some HP, Dell and IBM are not working with the USB's.

So last week I had asked an engineer to test with a USB HUB (he had a 4 port Netgear) to see if his IBM server would boot and it did!

With out the HUB, this did not boot with External or Internal cables. So now we are working on this with our USB DOM's.

Any information will help us take over this issue and help other engineers so there budgets
can be used better with our solution. So if you can test this we would really appreciate this! :D

Well, i'd like to help, but :

• I haven't got any problem booting with my custom external cable on my test computers
• I haven't got any USB hub for testing

I suppose you already had a look in the following direction :

• On HP forums, users reports that HP motherboards usually use a non standard pinout disposition. I also have read all the HP's technical documents related to my HP computers without finding the real pinout definition.
• I'm sure you know that some motherboard do not supply enough power on their USB to operate an USB HDD which simply don't start. I doubt it is the same because USB dom don't need a lot of power... but was it a powered USB hub or a non-powered one ?

As you can see i won't be of much help here...

Powered USB HUB. But you need not to worry about testing we just got a flood of customers :) from support providing us reports to help us. Thanks any way!