Installing Windows Server on Gen 11 / R810 / R710 PERC h700

Hi All,

Short answer - Disable internal SD card slot.

Long story:

I run into an issue trying to install windows on PERC h700 raid on 11gen servers (R710/R810). The issue is resolved, but taking into account that gen11 is still popular for home labs and various projects, and the way it manifests itself could be misleading I thought I would post it here in case somebody run into similar issue.

I have over dozen of old unused r810/r710 that were originally used as ESXi nodes in diskless configuration booting from internal SD card. I repurposed some of them for various projects, and for most of them I need local storage, so added perc h710. 

Card was recognized and raid built/initialized and could be used successfully by esxi as a datastore or as installation media. Same for Linux (ububtu/Centos/e.t.c)

But when it comes to windows server it would fail to install whether I was using Lifecycle controller (with driver pack)  or trying to install directly.

Depending on windows version (2008r2 2012r2, 1809)   it would either fail to create a partition, or if new partition is created and formatted it would fail to copy files. I spend days trying to fix what It thought was the driver/firmware issue, until I noticed that I can't configure boot priority for RAID, and it's grouped under "hard disk" along with dual SD card and OEM pack.  So I disabled internal SD card and was able to boot and install windows successfully.  

Once I started to dig into that direction I.E SD card cause issue during Windows installation, I immediately found an old thread https://www.dell.com/community/PowerEdge-HDD-SCSI-RAID/Unable-to-get-Windows-2012-R2-to-install/m-p/4234136#M34362  so it looks like a know issue, it just hard to recognize it the way Windows reports an error.

Hope that would help somebody.