Need help to initiate OS installation on bare metal server

[madhur_c]

Hello Gurus,

I am new to working with hardware and am keen to learn. Since doing it yourself is the best way to learn, I took the plunge and purchased a bare metal ASUS RS720-E7/RS12-E rack mount server. I installed the necessary hardware: CPU, Memory and Hard Drive. Server configuration is as follows:
CPU: 2x Intel Xeon 2670 processors
RAM: Crucial 16 GB DRAM
HDD: Seagate Constellation 3TB SATA drive

I also made an 8GB USB drive bootable for CentOS Minimal ISO, using "unetbootin". I was hoping to be able to boot from USB to install the OS.

However, now that I power up the server, its BIOS (Aptio Setup Utility (2012 American Megatrend)) does not provide an option to boot from USB. The options I see are:
(a) IBA GE Slot 0600 v1381
(b) AMI Virtual Floppy0 1.00
(c) AMI Virtual CDROM0 1.00
(d) (Bus 02 Dev 00) PCI RAID Adapter

I am not familiar with any of these and after looking for information online for several hours, decided to seek help.

Can you please help guide me on how to initiate the CentOS install in a step-by-step fashion? I do not have access to an external desktop that I can use to format the HDD and install the OS.

Please pardon my ignorance if this is too obvious, I am a noob when it comes to setting up servers but am trying to learn. Thanks for your help in advance!

 

[James Mason]

I believe it can only be booted off a network, until you get an OS on it.
Or an external CD/DVD drive. (on a networked device somewhere)
OR a CD/DVD drive in a laptop, that you use to remote control the server, but not remotely because you still have to be plugged into it's management console port.
You may want to try updating the BIOS in it to the latest version as well, that may give you more/clearer options.

Normally the OS would be installed on an express card (i.e. like a digital camera/cellphone memory stick), or well actually installed from an imaging server.

 

[madhur_c]

Thanks for your response James. I am going to try burning a bootable DVD and see if it helps. If not, BIOS update may be my only option.

I believe it can only be booted off a network, until you get an OS on it.
Or an external CD/DVD drive. (on a networked device somewhere)
OR a CD/DVD drive in a laptop, that you use to remote control the server, but not remotely because you still have to be plugged into it's management console port.
You may want to try updating the BIOS in it to the latest version as well, that may give you more/clearer options.

Normally the OS would be installed on an express card (i.e. like a digital camera/cellphone memory stick), or well actually installed from an imaging server.