HP BL460c Gen8 Debian squeeze installation

The issue here is that the hard drive or ethernet drivers are not detected by debian, not even after updating the firmware and the smart array driver as hp suggests here.

First, I must tell that I used a complete install cd, not a netinstall since ethernet is not working.

The solution is pretty simple, you just have to load the module during the installation with an additional option. Before debian installer tries to find the hard drives you switch to another tty and write:

# modprobe -r hpsa

to remove the module, then you reaload it with the new option:

# modprobe hpsa hpsa_allow_any=1

Then the system should install as usual, but it'll not load the module automatically when it boots since the rule to load it correctly is not within the system yet.

So, you will have to change some options in the Grub for the system to boot the first time. Go to the edit the line pressing the e key and type at the end of the options line:

hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1

Press b to boot and the system should boot normally. If you don't want to do this every time you restart the server you must create a file in the folder /etc/modprobe.d/  with the line

options hsa hpsa_allow_any=1

and update the initial ram filesystem with:

# update-initramfs -u

Finally a simple ifconfig will tell you that your ethernet card has been automatically configured, and yout're good to go.
cya.