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13396
April 16th, 2006 22:00
Unattended OS Installation Question
Hello:
I have several PE1850s with DRAC4 cards in them. I am new to DRAC cards. I typically use an unattended sif or txt file to install Windows Server OS. However, this process reformats the entire drive. Using the Server Assistant CD also says it will erase the entire voume including a Utility Partition and a 2GB FAT16 partition that I assume is related to DRAC.
Can someone shead some light on this? Will the SA really erase those partitions? Is there a way to use a scripted install and not erase these? Finally, Dell support said that there is no way to recreate those partitions if you delete them. Is that true?
Thanks.
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tester25
626 Posts
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April 19th, 2006 20:00
As far as the other stuff goes, I found the following information. Hope it helps. Let me know if you still have anymore questions.
***********************************
* Server Assistant limits the partition sizes available for operating
system installations, as per the following documented limits:
* 12 GB for Microsoft Windows
* 16 GB for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
You can use the appropriate disk management utility to increase
your partition size after the installation.
***********************************
* The Utility Partition created by Server Assistant contains diagnostic
utilities for your system. On rare occasions, incompatibilities between
disk firmware and controller firmware may cause the Utility Partition
to be inaccessible. In this case, you can download the diagnostic utilities
for your system from support.dell.com onto other media and perform the
system diagnostics when booted from that media.
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How do I perform an unattended operating system installation with the Installation and Systems Management CD?
You can install a Windows operating system on many systems using identical settings, which allows consistent configurations across all systems. To use this feature, it is necessary that the target Dell PowerEdge™ systems be configured identically, with the same hardware and operating system components. Any difference in configuration makes the replication feature unusable.
To perform unattended installations, do the following:
On the first system that is set up, ensure that the system's BIOS is set to boot from the CD. Insert the Dell PowerEdge Installation and Server Management CD and reboot your system. Follow the installation interview, which includes setting the date and time, configuring the RAID controllers, selecting the operating system and specifying its settings, configuring the hard drive, entering the network settings, and configuring Windows. If any information is omitted, an unattended installation can still be accomplished, but the system will prompt you for the missing information.
In the Installation Summary window, select Save Unattended Installation Script at C:\unattended.tx, C:\txtsetup.oem and select Save Profile for Replication at C:\replication. Click the Continue button.
Insert the appropriate operating system CD and follow the instructions to complete the installation. Reboot the system to complete the installation.
When the installation is complete on the first server, copy the files from the C:\replication directory to a diskette.
For each subsequent unattended installation, insert the disk containing the replication files into the diskette drive and boot the system. The installation interview will be done automatically. Then, insert the operating system CD to install the operating system, and reboot the system to complete the installation.
ePatrick
116 Posts
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April 26th, 2006 06:00