PowerEdge Utility Partition & Utilities

Dell Diagnostics (continued)

Starting Dell Diagnostics

Dell Diagnostics may be run either directly from the utility partition on the server's hard-disk drive or from a set of diskettes. The diskettes may be created through the Dell Server Assistant CD or from the Utility Partition Menu.

To run the diagnostics from the utility partition, perform the following steps:

1. Start the utility partition by pressing <F10> during the power-on self-test (POST).
   
   
2. From the utility partition's main menu, select the Run System Diagnostics option from Run System Utilities.

To run Dell Diagnostics from the diskettes, simply boot the system from the first diagnostics diskette.

When diagnostics are started, the Dell logo screen appears, followed by a message stating that diagnostics is loading. Before diagnostics loads into memory, a program tests the random-access memory (RAM) that will be used by diagnostics.

If no errors are found in the RAM, diagnostics loads, and the Diagnostics menu appears. The menu allows all or specific diagnostics tests to be run.

For a quick check of the system, select Quickly Test All Devices. This option runs only the device tests that do not require user interaction and that do not take a long time to run. Dell recommends that you choose this option first to increase the chance of tracing the source of the problem quickly. For a complete check of the system, select Fully Test All Devices. To check a particular area of the system, choose Select Devices to Test.

Selecting Exit to MS-DOS exits the diagnostics and returns you to an MS-DOS operating environment.

To select an option from the Diagnostics menu, highlight the option and press <Enter>, or press the key that corresponds to the highlighted letter in the option chosen.