confused

[stillnumber1]

The computer boots up and recoginzes the dell bios. It recognizes the two processors and the cd-rom drive. I noticed that the floppy drive is continually being accessed and I am not getting to the Perc 3/di controller and the computer does not boot

 

[jkupski]

I'd start with Dell's support on this one...

That said, have you been inside the box lately to do any kind of maintenance? The problem you're describing (with standard PC hardware as opposed to servers) can often be attributed to the floppy drive cable being installed upside down. It's possible this is something similar (maybe there's an issue with a backplane cable?) though I would expect the server to timeout and error instead of just hang there.

 

[NickFerrar]

You could try disconnecting the floppy drive and seeing if it boots.

 

[johnv20]

First thing is to check cmos - did you turn off the perc by mistake ?

 

[xmsre]

I've seen two Dell servers recently, where the internal cable that connects to the perc controller had come loose during shipping from the factory. These were the same symptoms. The solution was to plug the cable in. It might be worth a look in your case.