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T110 II w/ PERC 5/i as a boot drive
Hello:
Was up last night trying to install Windows 2008 R2 on a T110 II and a PERC 5/i card. (yea I know it's not a supported configuration, at the same time, it seems as if there has been some previous success with this config). The goal of the install is to get Windows 2008 R2 installed, using the PERC 5's VD as a boot device.
The problem I'm running into is that during the Windows install (launched through the Dell Universal System Cofigurator), the installer is complaining that it can't install on the detected VD volume. This held true even after various attempts at correcting it.
Here's the PERC configuration:
- Upgraded to latest version 5.2.2-0072
- 2 2TB drives, configured as RAID 1
- The conntroller BIOS flag is set.
- Single VD. Tried both 500GB, and the full 2TB (actual is 1.9TB).
- That single VD is set as the boot device.
BIOS config is as follows:
- Only DVD drive connected to on-board SATA controller.
- controller mode set AHCI (also tried ATA).
- Boot Mode set to both BIOS and UEFI (see below for behavior).
The following scenarios didn't work:
- VD set at 1.9TB, boot mode set to UEFI
- VD set at 500TB, boot mode set to UEFI
- VD set at 1.9TB, boot mode set to BIOS
- VD set at 500TB, boot mode set to BIOS
Several observations I also noticed with the boot manager behavior:
- If the boot mode is set to BIOS, the PERC controller is listed as an entry in the boot order. However, if I selected it to boot from, there is a complaint from the boot manager "no boot device found". (If it were a matter of no OS found on the boot device, I would think that would be a different message ???).
- If the boot mode is set to UEFI, boot manager doesn't even list the PERC controller as a boot option.
All in all, it FEELS like the PERC 5 controller is not presenting its configured VD as a boot device, even though the PERC is configured with the controller BIOS flag on, and even though there is a configured boot device (that single VD).
Wondering if other folks may have seen that with their PERC 5 controller? Could it just be specific to being installed on the T110 II server?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Peter
DELL-Geoff P
990 Posts
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May 16th, 2013 07:00
It may be missing the controller driver. You may need to present it separately at the beginning of the OS installation. Here is a link to download the Windows 2008 x64 driver: http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00352027M/1/SAS-RAID_Driver_M4F88_WN32_2.24.0.64_A03.EXE Download and extract to a USB key and at the F6 prompt choose the USB location.
It is an unsupported configuration, but this may allow you to use it.
Regards,
hychiang
4 Posts
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May 16th, 2013 08:00
Thanks for the quick response.
From everything I have read, Windows 2008 R2 already includes the PERC 5 drivers bundled in, so no need to present it to the OS installer. But since I have no other options right now, will give it a whirl.
hychiang
4 Posts
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May 16th, 2013 08:00
Hi Geoff:
Just tried the link you sent over and noticed several things:
1) The list of supported OSes doesn't include Windows 2008 server r2. It's very specific to the non-r2 version of windows. (since the driver is dated 2011, I think this does correctly imply that the Windows 2008 Server R2 doesn't need the drivers.
2) When trying to run the executable, it actually doesn't do any extraction, and instead attempts to install the driver. (since I'm using a windows 7 pro laptop, it fails to install). So seems like that driver is intended to be installed after the installation of win 2008 server r2 (??).
Anyways, reading up on the forums, everything still points to the PERC driver being bundled, so I'm not really worried about that. Any ideas on the other aspects of what I wrote down? the fact that in UEFI mode, the perc 5 card isn't even listed? Or the odd message of "no boot device found" when trying to boot under bios mode?
Thanks!
DELL-Geoff P
990 Posts
0
May 16th, 2013 08:00
OK. Here is the hard drive version that will let you extract it: http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER89865M/6/DELL_MULTI-DEVICE_A03_R210510.exe
It is not seeing the array in UEFI since its not supported. In bios mode, its not loading the controller driver properly from 2008 DVD. The above driver is a 2008 x64 driver since there is not an R2 version available.
Regards,
hychiang
4 Posts
0
May 16th, 2013 10:00
Hi Geoff:
Just tried the install with the above driver and unfortunate got the same error. It appeared the driver did get accepted, but the end-results were the same. :(
Good to know on the lack of support in UEFI for the PERC 5i card. At least I can stop experimenting in that possibility.
Thanks,
Peter