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I have an old eserver 325 (IBM) that I got second hand. It wasn't wiped clean before I got it, but I don't have the login details. I want to start fresh by loading up a new OS, Ubuntu. I saved a .iso file for Ubuntu (32 Bit) onto a USB Drive, stuck it in the server, hit F12 to get to the boot menu, and selected the removable device option. A black screen came up with a blinking line like in terminal/command line, but there was no text. The USB LED started blinking quickly and regularly, but after ten minutes of this, nothing had changed. I was expecting it to come up with a screen asking me about settings like language, but I think something is wrong. Any ideas on what the problem might be or how to fix it? Thanks!

Braiam
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Qaz
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  • see http://askubuntu.com/questions/30048/how-can-i-create-a-bootable-usb-disk-from-a-cd-image – Takkat May 26 '13 at 20:33

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First of all, and on a personal experience but with IBM x345, its BIOS identifies the CD as removable device and it isn't capable of booting from USB until you do a BIOS update to the latest available (and wish that the latest BIOS supports USB boot) you can find it in this link http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-53061

  • For USB, I would recommend the Universal USB Installer for making the bootable USB and use the Ubuntu Server x64 as well (most recommended as it will have better compatability to the server hardware, and you can install any GUI later as you wish)

  • If not possible, just try to burn the ISO file on a CD and use it instead of USB.

Ahmadgeo
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You don't actually save the ISO on the flash drive, you actually have to create a bootable flash USB with the ISO. You can use UNetbootin to create the bootable USB.

Now, I don't know for sure if the machine you have, can boot from USB. If that's the case, then you can create a bootable CD from the ISO, and try installing that way.

For more information on installing Ubuntu, see Ubuntu Docs

Mitch
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First of all, make sure that you haven't just copied the .iso to the USB drive. You actually have to write it using a special program. There is a tool for this in Ubuntu called "Startup disk creator".

After ten minutes of the black screen with the cursor, does the light on the USB drive still flash? If so, this means that data is being read from the drive, and it needs to complete. If it stops flashing and nothing happens, then there's probably something wrong. On the other hand, it can take quite some time to load the files necessary for booting.

I wouldn't be surprised if you're using a USB 1.1 port, in which case it could take an extremely long time to read data from the drive. In this case it should still work, even if you have to wait.

In either case, I would suggest burning the Ubuntu .iso to a CD/DVD and installing from that. This would be faster than a USB 1.1 port (although still slower than USB 2.0), and might circumvent problems with USB boot that may either be caused by poor support in the server hardware, the USB drive, or possibly some kind of bug in the installer.

Kalle Elmér
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