Boot issue, R730

Hello thanks for choosing Dell and welcome to our community!

These are the things on my mind:

1. You can access RAID controller BIOS ( Ctrl+R )  or HII  to check out the VD status.
2. The 200GB disk might not be a Dell part. Could you confirm that for us?
3. What OS are you using? You might want to try rescue USB OS so that you can mount the disk (VD) on the OS.
Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Respectfully,

Thanks for the response. 

1. No, Ctrl+R doesn't work, either does the Ctrl-S. No keyboard inputs produce a response.
2. SSDs are Dell / Intel
3. Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Datacenter

Would you try with another keyboard, and right when you see the prompt 
Poweredge Expandable RAID Controller BIOS, as seen in the middle of the image you shared, if you hit Ctrl-R there does it allow you access to the controller BIOS?

Now if you still can't then there is another issue occurring, as a raid issue will have no bearing on the keyboard. Are you seeing anything in the upperright side of the screen stating System Setup or Lifecycle Controller disabled or failed?

Lastly, the SSD you shared the image of is indeed supported on the server. 

Sorry for the misinformation above, yes I can get into the RAID control pages.  Also I have connected and attempted this all via iDRAC and a KVM attached to the front serial port/USB.

I see both physical disks online and 1 virtual disk group since it is setup as RAID1. All that looks good to me, no errors or things I don't expect to see in there. 
I cannot get into:

F2 - Setup

F10 - Lifecycle Controller

F11 - Boot Manager

F12 - PXE Boot

I can select them when they are on the screen but tapping F2 (or any other F key) during the entirety of the boot process has no results.

Hello in which case, I would direct you to

https://dell.to/4cF1Pev

I think at this point OS recovery is what we need rather than suspecting a hardware fault.

Through the live image, we can check whether the VD's OS partition is set properly or not.

Respectfully,

I appreciate that and for the sake of trying it, I downloaded and tried the Dell Support Live Image ISO as shown in the video.  It is attached through Virtual Media and it shows as mapped, but it will not boot to it.  It continues in the loop described in my original post. 

Also again, I am not understanding why none of the following have any response when the server is 1st booted.  
F2 - Setup

F10 - Lifecycle Controller

F11 - Boot Manager

F12 - PXE Boot

Today I went as far as hooking up a monitor and keyboard directly to the front of the server to eliminate any chance that trying the same process through iDRAC and a KVM were the issue with getting to Setup or Boot Manager.  All 3 ways, the function I'm trying to select highlights in blue, but nothing happens.  It just continues with the boot process and then about 10 seconds after it finds the Virtual Drive, it restarts again from scratch.  Also with the hookup directly to the front of the server, I can have F2 depressed when the server is immediately powered on to ensure I am not missing the window to get into those functions. 

P.S. the entire boot process takes about 2 min from power on till it restarts over again.

Thanks again.

Please power down the server, remove the power cables, then hold down the power button for 20 second to drain the flea power, then let the server sit for about 5 minutes. After that then see if the server will boot up and let you select iDrac Settings - Lifecycle Controller - Cancel Lifecycle Controller Actions -- Yes and see if that resolves the boot loop. Also, if you are able to boot you can go to the LCC and see if you can update the server on BIOS, iDrac, perc, etc. 

I had done that previously including the power button discharge but did it again yesterday and left it unplugged overnight. Went back to it this morning and got the same result. 

I took a video of the issue from start up, sped it up 2x. I'll see if I can provide a link to it for review. 

Video:

Dell PowerEdge R730 Boot Issue

Hi, you can try resetting iDRAC, clear NVRAM, and min2post process.

Reset iDRAC: Hold down the “i” button on the front panel for about 30 seconds to reset the iDRAC. This can sometimes fix boot issues related to iDRAC.

Clear NVRAM: Use the jumper on the motherboard to clear the NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random Access Memory). This can help resolve BIOS setting issues. https://dell.to/4cFyZuk

Minimal Hardware Configuration: Boot the server with the minimal hardware setup. Remove any unnecessary PCIe cards, external devices, and use only one memory stick. This can help identify if a specific component is causing the issue.

The minimum components to allow the Dell™ PowerEdge™ R730/R730xd to complete POST are as follows:

• System board
• One power supply unit
• One processor (CPU) in socket CPU1
• One memory module (DIMM) installed in socket A1
• Left control panel (for power button functionality)
• One backplane card

I have done the iDRAC and NVRAM resets in the past and saw no changes. 

I have yet to do a minimal hardware boot up but can try to get to it tomorrow.  If time does not permit, it won't be until after the holiday weekend though.

I'm surprised that the inputs are received from the keyboard and the selection can be made but none of the function keys inputs result an an action. I cannot recall ever seeing this before. 

So I did a minimal hardware config boot up and saw no difference in the results. 

I did find an article and based off of it, was trying both Ctrl+E and Ctrl+P during the start up.  With the minimal hardware, and hitting Ctrl+E, I got a window where it looked like it was going to go into Lifecycle Controller mode.  (see attached)  I never hit F10 so I'm not sure why it triggered with Ctrl+E.  It never did go into that mode though, after saying it was Entering Lifecycle Controller and seeing the bar at the bottom loading, it then recycled back to the start of the boot up cycle again.  
With all the hardware put back in, it never went into this mode with Ctrl+E for some reason.

Also I have an identical server at my disposal and I swapped a few items like memory and fans, same results.

Please review the past pictures and video.  Any thoughts on how to get past this, please let me know.  I'd really like to fix this and get this server back into the cluster.  

Thank you.

With you having a spare R730, what I would suggest is taking the Minimum to Post parts Erman listed (minus the systemboard) from this server and test them in the spare server. The reason I ask this is I want to confirm if all the other minimum to post parts are working correctly, as the issue may reside with this systemboard. 

Yes that was the hope when switching out some parts, to find something that changed the result in the boot process of the down server.  Although I didn't try all the hardware, I tried enough and it was time to take another direction.  I do think we likely have a systemboard issue but in the interest of time, I brought up the spare server I discussed, checked everything on it to ensure it had no issues and then rejoined it to the domain.  

It's now patched and added to the cluster getting us back to where we were essentially.  If time permits I'll try to revisit the server that failed but I think it'll take a systemboard swap to bring it back to life. This environment is older and not expected to be running a lot longer as I'm building out it's replacement at this time as well.

I appreciate the direction and support during the troubleshooting.