Tony Baker
Level 1 (55 points)

Q: Force xserve firmware

I have an Intel (Late 2006) Xserve and a Xserve (2008) system

 

Both of which will now NOT boot from internal drives in the drive bays.

 

They WILL boot from an external firewire drive  -  using both 10.4.11 or 10.6.8 operating systems.

 

When booting and holding the "alt" key  -  Only a install DVD (if inserted) and the FireWire drive appear as bootable options.

 

When the Operating system has booted ALL drives are appearing in both "disk utility" and as a bootable option in "Startup disk"

 

I am only using Apple logo'd drives - and have tried different brands and sizes - mainly the 80Gb ones supplied with the Xserves in the first place.

I have tried Apple SATA disk carriers (many different ones) and Apple SAS disk carriers (again, many different ones).

 

I have tried a Drive backplane board from a known working machine and that also fails to boot.

 

 

I thought it cannot be the backplane if the drives are seen by the OS.

My reasoning is that it must be down to the firmware as the drives are not seen as bootable options.

 

The firmware on the late 2006 system is  XS11.0080.B01 - which I believe to be the latest

 

I cannot re-install the firmware as the system says "you are using the latest firmware and doesn't require re-loading"

 

How can I force re-install the firmware onto these systems?

Do I need a new motherboard? - new machine ?

 

Regards

 

Tony

Xserve, Mac OS X (10.4.8), Intel and PPC systems

Posted on Mar 20, 2014 7:21 AM

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Tony Baker

Q: Force xserve firmware

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  • by Tony Baker,

    Tony Baker Tony Baker Mar 20, 2014 7:25 AM in response to Tony Baker
    Level 1 (55 points)
    Mar 20, 2014 7:25 AM in response to Tony Baker

    Additional to above

     

    I should have said that I have other xserve systems exactly the same as the ones above

     

    The drives/carriers boot in these other systems whatever combination of drives or carriers I use

  • by Tony Baker,

    Tony Baker Tony Baker Mar 20, 2014 9:05 AM in response to Tony Baker
    Level 1 (55 points)
    Mar 20, 2014 9:05 AM in response to Tony Baker

    Further to this

     

    I had a Spare (brand new) Motherboard - bought as a service kit from Apple.

     

    I have fitted the motherboard to the late 2006 xserve and this now can see all of the drives at boot (holding the "alt" key) and can therefore boot from the drives - (the firmware is a slightly earlier version than the one on the original board  -  (XS11-0079-B00)

     

    This seems to suggest either the original Motherboard IS faulty or that the firmware on the original board isn't working correctly.

     

    My original question remain - if it is possible to force re-install a version of the firmware onto the motherboard