Installing Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 on XPS400

Question

I want to install Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 on my XPS400. This gives the usual grief of not recognising the SATA drives, but this time even if I supply the F6 floppy from Intel, the drives remain unrecognised for the installation.   Thoughts, notes, procedures anyone?   Carlos

mombodog · Answer

all AHCI provides is NCQ (if the hard drive supports this)  and sata hot plugging, both of these are only helpful in server environments, totally useless on Desktop PC's.

mombodog · Answer

Enter the bios and set the 'Sata Operation' to  RAID Autodetect/ ATA,  the drive will be seen now.

cmdematos · Answer

Aaah - Native Command Queueing - I see.   So I would recommend installing in PATA mode and running on SATA mode, since NCQ does provide a small performance advantage as well as less wear on the disks.   Excellent information, thanks!   Since you know what you know, do you know if ...   XPS410 will support 8Gb of RAM (Dell says 4, Intel says 8Gb. I thought the chipset limited it, not BIOS?)   E520 will support 8Gb of RAM (again, same Dell and Intel story)   E520 and XPS410 will support Q6600 (after June 22nd Intel drops prices on these to $260 - yummy, and good for my servers)   So, what do you know?

cmdematos · Answer

Ha! That worked - thanks!   But since you know, how much do you know?   If I set it to APA from the AHCI (or whateever, its not in front of me right now - sorry), what is the difference?   Only OS compatability and nothing else? My current OS (Server 2003) still works OK. LOL - I should have asked before I installed about 16 months ago, it would have saved me a LOT of time!   Thanks again!

mombodog · Answer

'So I would recommend installing in PATA mode'   no, remember it says  Raid Auto Detect/ ATA   ATA can either be PATA or SATA.   What ever mode you install with, you are stuck with that mode, so if you want ncq, you will have to change the bios back to AHCI, find the correct drivers and reinstall the OS.    'I thought the chipset limited it, not BIOS?'  any of the three can limit maximum memory, Bios, Chipset, OS.

Windows General

Installing Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 on XPS400

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