flame Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 (edited) hi everyone. i have got my hands on a mcaffee webshield server. i would like to know if it is possible to wipe it and turn it in to a normal server so i can install a os on to it. if it can be done plz give infor or tut on how to do it. need a fresh mind on this now as its got my running up the walls lol. thx :D Edited February 23, 2012 by flame Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flame Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 hi everyone. i have got my hands on a mcaffee webshield server. i would like to know if it is possible to wipe it and turn it in to a normal server so i can install a os on to it. if it can be done plz give infor or tut on how to do it. need a fresh mind on this now as its got my running up the walls lol. thx :D quick update it a DELL Mcaffee Webshield 3200 Xeon server Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 I don't see why you couldn't put anything on there. Sounds like a normal Xeon server, which will run windows and Linux with no issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flame Posted February 25, 2012 Author Share Posted February 25, 2012 I don't see why you couldn't put anything on there. Sounds like a normal Xeon server, which will run windows and Linux with no issues. thats what i was thinking however it has a mcaffee bios and when you try and put backtrack on it goes all the was up to booting the usb or cd then bam. you would think something just smashed the monitor as it just has load ov colours all over with the backtrack background. then it does nothing. tried a few diff programs now and still no luck. <_< Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 (edited) What kind of hardware is in it? Do you know if it was in working condition before you received it? Pull the cmos battery if you can find it, wait like 30 seconds(make sure machine is unplugged too) then put it back in and boot it. Then see if you can get in into the bios itself. Chances are backtrack isn't supported with the hardware in question, so probably doesn't have proper drivers or anything. Try putting Windows Server 2003, XP, or Windows 7 on it. See what happens, or if it will boot off them. If it won't boot off them either, then might be some other issues to figure out like SCSI drivers(if it has SCSI cards) or RAID drivers(not sure whats in the box). Could try pulling the drive and mounting it in another system, make sure they don't have some special software on the drive itself to protect it. Try installing with the drive in another machine, then put back, see what happens, what kinds of errors you get. Just don't load any display drivers other than base VGA/VESA drivers to make sure it will boot and won't bluescreen. Edited February 26, 2012 by digip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infiltrator Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 thats what i was thinking however it has a mcaffee bios and when you try and put backtrack on it goes all the was up to booting the usb or cd then bam. you would think something just smashed the monitor as it just has load ov colours all over with the backtrack background. then it does nothing. tried a few diff programs now and still no luck. <_< Have you tried checking the boot sequence in the BIOS, to make sure removable media are allowed to be booted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flame Posted February 26, 2012 Author Share Posted February 26, 2012 What kind of hardware is in it? Do you know if it was in working condition before you received it? Pull the cmos battery if you can find it, wait like 30 seconds(make sure machine is unplugged too) then put it back in and boot it. Then see if you can get in into the bios itself. Chances are backtrack isn't supported with the hardware in question, so probably doesn't have proper drivers or anything. Try putting Windows Server 2003, XP, or Windows 7 on it. See what happens, or if it will boot off them. If it won't boot off them either, then might be some other issues to figure out like SCSI drivers(if it has SCSI cards) or RAID drivers(not sure whats in the box). Could try pulling the drive and mounting it in another system, make sure they don't have some special software on the drive itself to protect it. Try installing with the drive in another machine, then put back, see what happens, what kinds of errors you get. Just don't load any display drivers other than base VGA/VESA drivers to make sure it will boot and won't bluescreen. ok put the hd in another server i have installed bk5 on it with no problem. however the mcaffe one will not boot up from it. however i can install and run smart-wall on it. its doing my head in now as after that i managed to install bk5 on it again and when i rebooted again it would not load off the hard drive. it keeps trying to load of a logical hd instead. i think i need a way to change the bios as this mcaffe one is stopping me doing anything with it. according to its service tag it is a Dell PowerEdge 1850 but it looks nothing like it from the pic lol. any help would be good as i am about ready to throw it out the window lol. thx ppl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 Pull the CMOS battery like I mentioned above, then put it back in and boot, then see if you can hit the key to enter the BIOS, either delete, f2, f10, etc. Not sure which key for this device, but should be something on the screen to indicate this. Also, the disk when in the Dell machine, might be set to boot different, AHCI vs IDE vs SATA, etc, so need to check the BIOS for settings, make sure it matches the hardware and boot sequence. If that doesn't work, try windows, and if windows does work, use BT in a VM and be done with it. If windows doesn't work, then I am not sure what you could try, but need to do some more research on the hardware. It may be that the hardware itself is bad, something internally, GPU, etc, might be no good. How did you come by this hardware in the first place? Was it free or did you buy it. If you bought it, go back to the person who sold it to you and ask them about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infiltrator Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 I would do a research on the hardware, find out more about it. As well as to find out if the motherboard support other types of BIOS besides McAfee one. If it does support, then you could flush it off and hopefully be able to boot up the backtrack OS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flame Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 ok pulled the bat out and moved the jumper to clr com. i then tryed to update the bios and i just get this error error cannot use a bios in a mcafee, inc webshield. doing some reserch i found out that it is bast off a poweredge 1850 server, but they moded the bois. the server tag is 2vdc561. make is a dell model emu mfg date 12.01.04 any help is welcome and appreciated Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Something that old, try Server 2003 or Server 2000, or a base linux install, see how it goes. Depending on the internal hardware, not sure what you are going to get on it, but if you cleared the CMOS, you should be able to go into bios to check things out. If its all McAfee in the BIOS itself, well, might need to see if you can put something generic on there for that hardware, like a phoenix bios, but it has to be meant for that board in the server. Check all the specs on the board and then go to the Dell site, see if they offer anything, or if the board has a different manufacturer name on it, like Gigabyte(not saying that is what is in there, just using them as an example) and then go to the manufacturers site and see if they offer a bios utility. Most motherboards do and you should be able to update it with what is meant to be on the board. You can't just put anything on there, it has to match the hardware from the OEM. If thats a no go on the bios stuff, at least try something like Server 2003 or 2000, see how that goes. If they won't install, then I'd say sell it on ebay, and unload it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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