Part 2: Mini-Mainframe at Home: Installing a Modern OS
Part 2 of The Story of a 6 CPU Server from 1997 – In this section we’ll try to get a modern OS running on the ALR Revolution 6×6 with 6 Pentium Pro Processors.
For the background of the ALR 6×6 and Pentium Pro processors that form the basis of this project please see Part 1 of the project.
Part 2: Installing and Using an OS
Before you start installing the OS, you need to select the correct kernel of the operating system. To do this, at the initial stage of installation, press the F5 key.
In this case, we choose – MPS Multiprocessor PC, since the other options simply do not fit, since this server naturally does not support ACPI. In general, I will advise anyone who makes such experiments by choosing a more “modern” OS, which is older than the hardware itself – to turn off ACPI support in the BIOS (if present). This simple action will keep your nerves decent.
Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition was installed and, as I wrote above, the system had one working CPU core.
Next, an attempt was made to install the operating system from the operating system itself using the update method, but at the initial stage the Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition installer warned me that a multiprocessor configuration not supported by the operating system was used.
But there are many ways to install the OS. Alternatively, I tried the OS “transfer method” with a known-workable SMP configuration. Taking the ASUS P2L97-DS motherboard on an Intel 440LX chipset with a pair of Intel Pentium-II with a frequency of 450 MHz, which should be deprived of a hardware error and chose the “MPS Multiprocessor PC” core, but the installation process did not start at the stage of copying the original files, reaching until installation on the hard disk. At this point, the system hung, not reaching the choice of the installation source. Much has been tried, loops, different drives and RAM, but all to no avail. At this point, a single Pentium-3 was also hanging on the Asus P3B-F motherboard (Intel 440BX chipset).
In the end, I decided to take another board with two SLOT 1 connectors – Asus P2B-D (Intel 440BX chipset) and a pair of Intel Pentium-III. OS Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition was safely installed, it remains to transfer it to a six-processor server. As a result, having moved the necessary hard drive, I decided to do the first boot in “safe mode” in order to exclude the influence of different devices of both systems on each other, but as a result I received a BSOD.
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