Assigning a Preferred Boot Device
When installing an operating system on the PERC H200 card, it is strongly recommended that the desired Preferred Boot Device is selected in the <Ctrl><C> configuration utility. In the SAS topology screen in <Ctrl><C>, you can scroll down to either select the desired unconfigured physical disk or virtual disk and assign that device as the Preferred Boot Device by pressing <Alt><B>. The Preferred Boot Device is then be marked as Boot under Device Information. <Alt><B> can be used to deselect a previously selected Preferred Boot Device as well.
NOTE: When an unconfigured physical disk is selected as the Preferred Boot Device, the selection is associated with the slot that the drive resides in. If the drive is then moved to a different slot, the system is not able to boot to the device anymore and an error message is seen during boot.
NOTE: When a virtual disk is selected as the Preferred Boot Device, the selection is associated with the virtual disk itself. If the volume is then moved to a different location in the system, the system will still identify the virtual disk as the Preferred Boot Device and be able to boot without any errors.
When a Preferred Boot Device goes missing, an error message is seen on POST, requiring user action to continue. The error message is as follows:
ERROR: Preferred boot device is missing, reconfiguration is suggested!
You need to enter <Ctrl><C> to investigate the problem and select another Preferred Boot Device if needed.
In the scenario where you do not select a Preferred Boot Device, the boot device is chosen based on slot number, with the lowest number being given the highest priority. A message is displayed upon the first boot at POST stating which device has been assigned as the Boot Device.
PERC H200 and 6Gbps SAS HBA BIOS
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