Unable to determine the boot device.

Boot to the BIOS Setup (F2) and make sure that your CD/DVD drive is at the top of the boot order/sequence.

What OS are you hoping to install?

I changed the boot sequence to boot from the CD/DVD drive but its still the same.

i want to install windows server 2003 R2 on it.

Please need your feedback as soon as possible.

If the CD/DVD drive is at the top of the boot order AND it has a CHECKMARK by it (Space Bar will enable/disable devices in the list), then you either have a bad Windows CD or a bad CD/DVD drive.  Can you boot to a known bootable disk and/or can you boot to the disk you are using on another machine?

we bought two of those systems and they are all giving me the same problem,i also set the checkmark on  the drive but its still the same.

I don't know if i downloaded the actual dell installation and server management iso.

They are all giving you the same problem with your ISM disc you created?  If so, then it is most likely our ISM disc to blame.  If you browse your ISM disk on another computer, do you see the ISO file, or do you see other file/folder contents?  Will that disc boot on another machine?

Technically, you should be using SBUU or SMTD:

www.dell.com/.../poweredge-2950

This will require SP2 on your 2003 media.

There are other file/folders contents on the disk not an ISO file and there are only 2servers which have the same problem with recognizing the disk drives. Also the link to the ISO you sent have the capability of handling the installation

"Also the link to the ISO you sent have the capability of handling the installation "

Is that a question?  If so, the answer is yes.  SBUU is the latest installation utility; ISM is no longer used.

By "disk drives", you mean they don't recognize the CD (disc) to boot from, correct?  Will the CD you are using boot on ANY other machine/computer you have there?  We need to confirm the CD was created properly and is actuallly bootable.  

Not the CD (disc) but the hard drive to install into. I burned the ISO directly onto the CD and it boots all right.

That was a question actually and thanks for the answer.

It might be the latest installation utility which you recommend but the PC is not a recent model.

I'm afraid I'm a little lost then as to what your actual problem is.

If you boot to ISM, it should not be telling you it can't find any hard drives if the CTRL-R utility has found disks and allowed you to configure them in a RAID 5, unless you are using a non-Dell/unsupported RAID controller, in which case you cannot use the installation utility.  Does the system have a PERC 5/6? or some other controller?

Booting to the 2003 CD will likely tell you no hard drives can be found (and needs a driver), but ISM should not (what version of ISM are you using?  if it is an old version (again, SBUU should be used where possible), it may not be able to talk to the controller).

Do you have pictures to help explain what/where you are seeing (or can you explain more exactly what is going on)?

The latest version of the installation utility supports 2003 and the 2950 and "should" be the one you use.

The system has PERC 6/i controller and am able to configure my disks in RAID 5. After configuring and initializing the virtual disk,then proceed to boot from the CD/DVD drive where am prompted with 4 options to choose from and by default chooses server assistant.

Later prompts me with an error:

Unable to determine the boot device. Drivers may not be initialized. Initialize using the BIOS utility, or check if the disks are connected properly.

I downloaded the ISM from this link below:

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/04/DriverDetails/Product/poweredge-2950?driverId=R146318&osCode=WNET&fileId=2731115812

ISM was discontinued with the release of SBUU 5.3, so ISM 5.2 is the last version (and the one you downloaded) ... its release date was 4/10/07.  The PERC 6 was released no sooner than 10/29/07 (the date of the BIOS version that added support for the PERC 6), so it stands to reason that, even though the PERC 5 and the PERC 6 use the same driver, only a minimum driver version (probably 2.14) will work to support the PERC 6, which will not be present in ISM 5.2 (probably 1.18 or 2.08).  You need a minimum of SBUU 5.3 (you'll need a higher version, the more recent your firmware is), but, as I've said before, you are always better off using the latest version.

Thank you for the insight of the difference with ISM and SBUU.

Can you send me a link to that kind of driver.

Also when i check for server management and installation drivers some of the drivers come with multiple ISO,how do i join

them together and burn it on a disk.

oh, there is one caveat to using this iso, during the dell portion of the installation, there will be a checkbox that says Install Server Administrator, uncheck this box.

Here is the link www.dell.com/.../poweredge-2950

lets start with the basics,

1. you must be using the iso from the above link for this to work at all

2. does your system have a cdrom drive or a dvd, we need to know which one it has.

The link to the latest installation utility is in an earlier post of mine (and provided by rey).

Some of the utilities (like SMTD, which also contains SBUU) have multiple ISO's, but for 2003, you don't need SMTD - just download the single SBUU ISO we gave you a link for, then burn it appropriately to DVD.  (As rey said, uncheck the box to install OMSA during the process of doing the installation setup.)

Boot to this DVD and select OS Install and follow the prompts.

You said earlier you were using a DVD drive, but if you are NOT using a DVD drive, SBUU will NOT boot, as it is a DVD.  If you have a CD-only drive, let us know.