SC1420 windows 2008

Yes, I am currently working on this subject matter myself and I was able to install SBS 2008 SP2 on it. You will need to have at least 4GB of memory on the system, the 512K is not enough (And even this is probably too little so you will probably need to upgrade the hardware too, that is add a fan to the memory also to have at least 6GB.  One thing you will need to look at is are the RAID 1 drivers, the RAID1 drivers from DELL for Server 2003 64 Bit work with 2008, but you will have to have them on a USB stick. Also my system just came with a CD-ROM drive, so you will have to either buy a DVD-WR drive or buy a USB stick where you will need to have the installation files.  You can prepare this either yourself or use a little program http://gladiator-antivirus.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=99937

which allows you to copy the DVD installation disk and make a bootable usb drive.

Hope this helps a little!

Just to clarify something viennacab said so you don't get confused ... there is no such thing as "RAID 1 drivers".  You will need the drivers for whatever RAID controller you have - and you will need to configure the RAID before attempting to install, but the actual RAID level doesn't matter.  You might already have known this ... just in case, I didn't want you scouring Dell's support site for a RAID 1-specific driver.

As 2008 is not a "supported" OS for the SC1420, you will not be able to use the installation utility to help install it ... you will need to do it directly from the OS disk.

If you have tried booting USB on the SC1420 and say that it works, then I will trust you.  Many older systems do not support booting to USB.  The SC1420 is of the same generation as the 2650, so I would have guessed it wouldn't boot to USB ... but we will go with what you have tried.

BTW ... when I said install "directly from the OS disk", I meant that generically, meaning he will have to install using a traditional method of installation (usually from disk) ... only as opposed to using the installation utility (ISM/SBUU/SMTD) to install.  I'm definitely familiar with installing 2008/2008R2/Vista/7 from USB ... the 2650 is about the only machine I install from DVD anymore, since it does not boot to USB.

I agree with your additional comments, except for the part of using directly the OS disk. It is possible to successfully install Windows 2008 from a USB stick after making it bootable with the utility I suggested.  There are other issues though I am having problems myself. After I updated some security hotfixes Windows SBS 2008 was not able load anymore. My first thought was there was a registry problem, but after I compared the Last Known Good configuration with the standard configuration and there was no difference in those two registry versions, I have believe there is a problem somewhere and this is the reason why 2008 is not a supported OS.

See if you can update us on the server configuration you have there, to get proper suggestion. Instead of guessing and suggesting thousands of options.

"Thousands" of options?  There is a grand total of 1 configuration question that even matters - which RAID controller he has.  After two weeks, I'm guessing he has worked it out or decided on something else.

The server cannot handle 2008 talked to Dell support and 2008 is lacking drivers it needs to function properly so we installed 2003.

I will probably order a T410 after some time, because I don't really want Dell to think I am trying to be a thrifty penny saver alone. But I do realize though that people on this forum are honest people and this is appreciated a great deal! Thanks everyone!

I had a problem with the SC1420 because after some SBS 2008 updates it would not boot anymore. After I installed a Delock (Product No. 70146) Controller Card (2x SATA 1x IDE) the system booted again and SBS 2008 runs fine again but the dreaded "Press F1 Key" still shows up after it says the BIOS installed successfully! I ordered a controller card on the Internet because I had a spare 500 GB Seagate disk which I took out of an external black USB 2.0 Maxtor 500 GB drive because it suddenly stopped working as my backup for SBS 2008 (unconventional I admit,  but with this SATA card it worked again and money makes the world go round).

The configuration for the SC1420 when it was delivered on 2005/04/26 on the service tag sais:
Poweredge SC1420 - SATA - XEON 2.8 GHZ /1M
512 MB Single Rank DDR2 Memory (2x256MB)
No Second Processor option with no TBU
No Floppy Drive
80 GB SATA (7, 200 RPM) in Hard Drive, 1st
80 GB SATA (7, 200 RPM) in Hard Drive, 2nd
No Second Bay Device with 1-3 HDS
48x IDE CD-ROM Drive
Video Controller Card
C04 (Must order OS) SATA, Software RAID

Originally I had removed the 512 MB onboard memory and added 4GB RAM (dual rank) myself and installed SBS 2008 on it from a "Power RAM 16GB Stick mini pro" for around € 35 (see pic below)

If you need anymore information, I can even give you a temporary remote VPN connection on SBS 2008 on the SC1420, so no false claims here.

I only have two servers, the other is a T300 where I am running Windows 2008 Server core with only a Hyper-V partition on it. On top of it I have another Server 2008 GUI running, part of the SBS 2008 Premium benefit. Good luck.