Poweredge 1800 running windows XP

You are in for a long, up-hill battle putting XP on a server, especially this one.  No client OS is supported on any server, so Dell won't have drivers for you and finding those drivers will be up to you ... and many of them do not exist.  The first - and usually fatal - obstacle you'll face is the storage controller.  

If you are using SCSI drives on this server attached to a PERC RAID controller, you are probably finished, as the SCSI RAID controllers for this system have never been used in a system that supported XP.  Your best bet would either be to try the Server 2003 drivers and hope they are similar enough, or try finding a driver from LSI's website that closest matches your controller (PERC controller are based on LSI models, customized and sold as Dell PERC's).

If you are using SATA drives on this server attached to a CERC SATA controller, again, you probably are finished, unless you can find a driver for the similar Adaptec controller (during POST or in the CTRL-A utility for the CERC, there should tell you the chipset it is running).  If you have SATA drives, you could connect two of them to the onboard SATA controller and remove the CERC altogether.

Once (if) you get past the storage issue and get XP installed, then you will need to start hunting down drivers for the chipset (from Intel.com) and other devices in the system (NIC is also Intel).  You may or may not be able to find drivers for some devices, as some devices were only ever designed to be used in servers.

I have just installed XP Pro on my PE1800 and it seems to be working great (not as a server just my personal machine) just wish the 1800 had more pci 1 slots

Patshrum1

how about giving us more info in what or how you did things.  I would greatly appreciate it

what additional drivers you used and so on

greatly appreciate the extra help or advice

thank you

I Think you can run sata or scsi not both?????????????

I have XP Pro on my PE 1800 w/scsi drives. You need to put the drivers for the sata controller on a floppy so XP Pro can find them during the install at the F6 prompt. Got the drivers from Dell. I tried to add a sata drive just lying down in the box hooked up to the sata onboard and it is not reconized at all. I turned on the sate in the bios but the next time I check it is off.  I am wondering if you can only run one or the other (scsi or sata). This evening I am gonna try to disable scsi and enable sata and see what happens

If you installed XP on it with SCSI drives, it would likely be the onboard SCSI port and not an add-in PERC RAID controller.  You can use onboard SCSI or SATA, not both.  Check here for a driver for the onboard (or add-in non-RAID) SCSI controller:

support.dell.com/.../driverslist.aspx

Can you please give me links to what drivers you installed 

also if your running windows xp are you by any chance also using a dual video card. If so which one 

thank you 

What drivers are needing exactly? I am using the onboard video and I think most of the drivers came up. I was also using a Dell disc for installing XP Pro sp2

You can try the 2003 drivers in the link I gave you before or try a SCSI driver from one of the Precision workstations that DO support XP, like the 450:

support.dell.com/.../download.aspx

I belive I used the 2000 drivers for the missing ones