I like the dual power supplies 3 gigE ports and CPU/Memory overkill on several of these IBM xSeries 336’s that have scsi drives host based BGP edge routers currently running Debian with Quagga . I want to MikroTik/RouterOS-ize them. I ran the CD installer for RouterOS 5.16 and installed on a Transcend JetFlash USB Flash drive. Rebooted many times, and the flash drive displays in the bios “boot from” menu, and the thumb drive access indicator lights up and the screen says “Loading” but it just sits there forever. Anyone have any ideas I could try?
I tried plugging the same flash drive into an HP Proliant DL140 and got almost the exact same results, it says “Loading system” and the flash drive access light blinks but it sits there forever.
I tried booting the IBM xSeries 336 from my Debian net installer thumb drive, it booted up just fine. Boots up fine on the HP also.
I tried installing routerOS 5.14 onto the JetFlash and got the same results, no boot on either system.
I tride installing ROS 5.16 onto JetFlash using Netinstall, now, booting from flash on the HP DL140 shows “SYSLINUX 3.84” … and after a long while: “Boot failed: please change disks and press a key to continue”.
I have routerOS running on at least 3 HP DL140’s that boot from IDE drives, so I know the hardware runs RouterOS, and I know the hardware boots from flashdrive because it will boot my DOS bootable flashdrive and my Debian installer flash drive.
Finally getting somewhere: on the HP DL140, I used Netinstall from a windows box and put the latest packages on a cheap giveaway/throwaway flashdrive - it booted and installed to itself (I had unplugged DL140’s IDE drive) and I was then able to boot the DL140 from the thumbdrive - go to do the same procedure with the IBM now. The installer boots and runs from the USB flash drive but when the IBM reboots it won’t load RouterOS it sits there with “Loading” forever. Apparently ROS doesn’t like something in the IBM xSeries 336.