captainmidnight

One thing worth checking that I stumbled upon was that C1E needed to be disabled in the BIOS. Obviously this had been done, otherwise it wouldn't have been working in the first place - but, what I hadn't realised was my C2032 motherboard BIOS backup battery was flat so if the N54L lost power even for a small period the C1E setting in the BIOS automatically flipped back to it's default setting which is ON! Result - no visibility to find the booted machine on the network - although it would appear to be working......

HP N54L Gen7 microservers are definitely old now - I've been using 2x of them for the last 8yrs - one configured as a Linux server, the other as a XPEnology backup NAS, originally 5.2.5644 then just recently 6.1.7.15284 after I'd bought a Synology DS918+ as I needed a dual backup system (live backup and additional archive) solution. They are old boxes now I agree - they work really well though, relatively cheap on auction sites - with spares and upgrade options being cheap due to hardware age (memory upgrades etc). After BIOS upgrades the rack drives are also hot-pluggable. As IG-88 stated, nowadays being able to play with XPEnology builds with VMware is great to get a feel for things. If I was starting it all again with no kit - I'd still be looking at a HPE Gen8/10 microserver, as functionality wise, everything you'd probably want would be available from the get go - or I'd be looking to build my own rig from scratch as even relatively cheap PC components compare well with real Synology hardware - just take a look on Synology's website at various DSxxx+ units - their processor and memory configs are not exactly cutting edge. You really need to compare your budget to your requirements, it has been great having the XPEnology build generally fault/error free for all these years.

Brilliant thought, that was it !! Working now.....

Hmm seem to be hitting a bit of a stumbling block with a rebuild on 6.1.7 After editing and creating the v1.02b USB boot loader, the N54L appears to boot through the loader and sits at the screen as per the tutorial but is completely invisible on the network - it's not even trying to pickup a DHCP lease. I've had a look through the BIOS and can't really see anything obvious although I have noted the BIOS date is 2013 (build 041) - is this version ok or would I also need to upgrade this as well - I know it was definitely working with this BIOS with 6.0.1 but not sure if 6.1.7 requires a N54L BIOS update?

Ok, thanks

Thanks also for your input, it's appreciated. It may well make more sense just to go to 6.1.7 at the moment. Just a question though as a way of possibly simplifying things in the future would the v1.03b boot loader work for both DSM versions?

Ahh right, I understand what you're saying - yes there is no reason for me to keep the recreated v5 system - I just built it this way yesterday as I knew it worked. From what I can remember many years ago when I first made the XPEnology build - it appeared rarely possible to build a relatively up-to-date version of DSM without going through various prior versions first - I suppose this time around the updated boot loader and NOT having to migrate/update etc probably plays into my favor this time round. I suppose it's time for me to stop talking and to go do some rebuilding ....

Thanks for the reply billat29, that gives me a good starting point reference. A 'new' install - would I be right in thinking that would be when I boot from the v1.03b flashed USB pendrive and then use a 'manual' .pat file for the install - if I can see the NAS via the Synology find tool, I'll have nothing to loose trying to go directly to 6.2.3, failing that I'll re-group back to 5.2.644 and try the same procedure but to 6.1.7 Thanks for the pointers

Hi All After many years of wrongly solely relying on my HP Microserver N54L (with only updated BIOS) running XPEnology 5.2.644 - which although has worked flawlessly - I wanted to upgrade to a dual NAS backup system as I've just got too much valuable data in one unit. So with that in mind and as XPEnology/Synology has worked so well, I took the plunge and bought a Synology DS918+ and new higher capacity drives - to give a true legit Synology NAS. After a bit of playing about and nervous migration, I was able to migrate my original XPEnology RAID5 (3x disk) setup to the new DS918+ unit and then, by a drive at a time technique, replaced the original 3x 2TB drives with 4x 4TB drives - I couldn't do it any easier way due to being a 'spanner' and letting the N54L try to update itselft to the latest DSM - yeah I know - ME STUPID!!! - what I'd like to call 'COVID19 lockdown meltdown' 🤣 All my original data is now safe on the new DS918+ setup.......... 😉 So, here I am now sitting with a rebuilt spare XPEnology DSM 5.2.644 NAS, with the original 2TB drives all cleared and parity checked ready for configuration as a backup NAS to my new unit. Having looked at the forums can someone with a HP N54L please confirm the following questions: - What is the latest version of DSM that a hardware unmodified (original onboard NIC) HP N54L can successfully install and run? For the above DSM version to work, what is the required XPEnology DSM USB 'loader'? To achieve (1) can it be done directly from 5.2.644 and if so by what method or what intermediate steps / builds are required? From what I've seen so far, it would suggest the highest DSM version I can go on the original hardware is 6.1.7.15284 but it appears 6.2.3 may also be possible? If anyone with a running XPEnology HP N54L could offer some advice on the above I'd really appreciate it - I've had an initial look around the forums and now I'm completely confused over what can be done on the original hardware. 😕 Thanks in advance Phil

Hi, I was in a similar position, but after thanks from billat29, go back to the 1st post in this thread and it'll link to the original here https://xpenology.com/forum/topic/6253-dsm-6xx-loader/ At this thread's 1st post there are links to the zip files, this is the file that works - Ds3615xs 6.0.2.Jun's Mod V1.01.zip Read this amazing tutorial by Polanskiman : https://xpenology.com/forum/topic/7507-tutorial-installmigrate-dsm-52-to-602-juns-loader/ Download : here or here link updated due to directory structure change of mega share -- by jun 2-28 That's the one that use the .img file inside and select the 'AMD' option when booting - option 4 from memory on the loader.

OK, thanks billat29 I'll take another close look at it......

Hi CtrlAltDel / Gronaldo - sorry but I'm currently trying to read through these 54 pages for advice, you posted that you were able to use Jun's loader with your HP Gen 7 microserver - was it a N54L? If it was did you have to do anything to the image/config to get the nic working? I think I can boot the image but not sure if I have the correct/latest version as the posted version from Jun has been removed, so not sure if the one I've been able to find is the latest. My issue seems to be with any 5.+ usb boot image the N54L's MAC address is seen on the network switch it's attached to, on my version of Jun's loader there is no MAC address visible on the switch port it's attached to so the nic appears not to be working with this build - yes I've adjusted the s/n and mac address info in the image before booting. Can anyone suggest any help or places where the confirmed latest build of Jun's loader can be downloaed please?