Error with installation XP on T7400

Which controller are you using?  Onboard SATA?  Onboard SAS 5/6/iR?  PERC 5/6/i?

XP SP3, as nat suggested, may help, but you will need a minimum of SP2 for any of the SAS controller drivers.

If using the SAS 6/iR, make sure you are using the following driver:

www.dell.com/.../DriverDetails

You can use a floppy at the F6 prompt during Windows Setup, but I would recommend rather that you use nLiteOS.com to integrate the driver (and SP2 and/or SP3 if needed) into your installation media (F6 would then not be required).

The SAS 6/iR supports RAID and non-RAID, so if you wish to run with a RAID array, you MUST configure RAID in CTRL-C BEFORE you attempt to install the OS.  There is NO way to switch between RAID/non-RAID later.

The Windows version I have is SP2 and indeed I have SAS 6/iR. I already tried the driver you suggested, but not with slipstreaming. So that is something I'll try.

The second issue I'm having is (speaking of RAID) I have two hdd's (146Gb) and in my windows 7 (currently running) I can only see 1 hdd. When I hit ctrl+c on startup I can see two Fujitsu hdd's (140Gb each) and it says they're both RAID. I can't find why I can only see one hdd.

My third question is something I looked up on wikipedia but can't really understand: I thought SAS made two hdd's work as one but now I understand that is what RAID does. Now I learned that SAS is a sort of replacement for SCSI but why is SAS better? And is it?

1) If your firmware is very old, you may need to look at an older version of the driver.  What is your SAS 6/iR firmware at?  Why are you downgrading to XP?

2) The SAS 6/iR is "hardware" RAID, and as such, does 100% of the RAID and disk management.  When you create a RAID 1 (which is a mirror of two disks), the array is considered a Virtual (or Logical) Disk.  That Virtual Disk (VD) is presented to Windows as a single "disk" for use by Windows.  Windows is completely oblivious of the existence of RAID, the type of RAID, or the number of underlying disks that make up the RAID.  This is why Windows only shows/sees a single disk.  The only way you can see the member disks is by using an application that can talk to the RAID controller to request that information.  On the Precision lineup, that application is the RAID Storage Manager:

www.dell.com/.../DriverDetails

3) SAS is fairly new, and stands for Serial Attached SCSI.  It uses the same robust, enterprise-level internal drive commands as SCSI, but has a "serial" interface, as opposed to the "parallel" interface of old SCSI technology.

en.wikipedia.org/.../Serial_attached_SCSI

SATA is the "serialized" version (SATA - Serial ATA) of the old IDE/ATA/PATA standard (PATA - Parallel ATA), so SAS is to SCSI what SATA is to IDE/PATA - allowing for much faster transfer rates, as well as other features, such as NCQ, hot-swap, etc.

SAS is backward compatible with SATA, meaning that a SAS cable/backplane connector will take a SATA drive (but the reverse is not true):

Other than the internal SCSI commands, there are NO other similarities with SCSI; there is no compatibility whatsoever between the two technologies - connectors, power, etc.  While SAS and SATA connectors and other features/requirements are similar, there are few other similarities between the two - SAS uses the SCSI command set, while SATA does not, so even though you may connect both to the same cable or backplane, they cannot be used in the same RAID array together (separate arrays, yes).

Many thanks! I could not destill that information from the wikipedia (I'm not much of a computer whizz)

I hit ctrl+c at startup and the firmware information I hope you were talking about is: MPT Firmware Revision 0.25.47.00-IR. At the top of the screen it says: LSI Corp Config Utility   For Dell SAS 6   v6.22.03.00 (2008.08.06)

The reason I'm downgrading is because I'm using CAD software (NX5) that's installed on multiple pc's and I'm using a floating licence on a dongle. According to the helpdesk of NX this type of licence with my version of NX doesn't work between XP and Windows 7. So untill the new version of NX is out, I have to use XP on all pc's.

I just tried the slipstreamed Windows installation but I got a bluescreen again  :(

I compared the Bios again with the T7400 I installed XP on about 2 years ago and I could detect 2 differences:

 The first is that with the old T7400 SATA-0 and SATA-1 are both enabled and with the new T7400 only SATA-0 was. That difference I blamed on the fact that the old one has 2 DVD-drives in it and the new one only one.

 But the second difference I could detect was that in "Drives\SATA Configuration", in the old one "ATA" is highlited and with the new one "AHCI" is highlited. What does this mean?

Many thanks theflash1932!!

XP is up and running :D I seems that I did something wrong with nLite the first time.

And for completion of the thread:

I have two hdd's and they're in a RAID1 configuration apperently

Also I switched the SATA ports from AHCI to ATA

It has become clear that nLite works better than installing the drivers with floppy pre OS.

Again thanks!

It has become clear that nLite works better than installing the drivers with floppy pre OS.

Floppies can be very flaky ...  not sure how we put up with them for so long!

Glad you got it sorted ... take care.

A very interesting thread, I've had a similar problem and tried slipstreaming the drivers, I ended up not bothering with the sas drive and using the sata drives instead.  I'm in the process of ordering windows 7 and hope this will help matters.  This is what I have so far.

Workstation, Dell T7400

1) Tried ata drive in sas position, ubuntu found it and installed straight away with no problem.

2) For the life of me I could not get xp to install to that drive, would not find it.  The sas controller displays it and it's obviously there as ubuntu installed.  I tried slipstreaming the drivers from Dell along with SP3 and still had no joy.  Gave up and put xp on the sata drive in sata socket.

3) Now have 2 sas drives waiting to be used, as soon as I get windows 7 pro, I will try again.

Meanwhile, if anyone can suggest something to help me find this drive in xp I would be grateful.  Thank you.

I installed windows 7 on my T7400 and I had no problems whatsoever. As I wrote earlier, slipstreaming the drivers into windows XP professional x64 worked fine for me. I only had a windows version with SP2 by the way.