We ran into this problem with two new DL180 G6 servers combined with Western Digital (WD) 750GB SATA drives. The description matches everything in this thread on the HP ITRC forums:
-tried different mediums (centos,redhat)
-same behavior with different RAIDs (tried 1 and RAID 5)
-yes, I also used the smart array linux driver disk
-tried graphical and linux text mode
It fails always at “formatting filesystem”. The only difference I’ve seen, is that it stops around 11% with 2 disks in RAID1. With RAID 5 it fails around 98%.
We have seen this behaviour with regular W2003 installations as well. Further on in this thread there is someone with the solution:
Hi there,
I have found the problem!
The problem is the Western Digital drive. We have received 2 hdd types. 1 Seagate and 1 WD. I created a RAID 0 volume with only the Seagate drive and the OS install fine. When I create a RAID 0 or RAID 0 + 1 with the WD drive the OS install was freezing when it try to format the drive.
I think it is an issue between the Smart Array 212 and the WD drive. I have installed the latest firmware of the Smart Array and of the WD drive but it doesn’t fix this problem.
I have opened a case at HP support and I hope that the HDD will be replaced with a Seagate or a soon firmware update for the 212 or / and the WD drive
We have put this information in our own support call with HP as it seems that is not yet known throughout the service organization.
Update 10/8: Problem seems to be fixed with new firmware for the controller and backplane. Make sure you get it or ask for it with HP.