If your bootdisk is on a raidcard you need to load the drivers first before Windows Setup can find the harddrive. When you enter Windows Setup it will ask you to press F2 (if I remember correctly) if you want to load drivers of add-on cards. Press F2, load the drivers of your add-on card and Windows Setup should be able to detect your harddrive.
You do need a floppy drive to 'feed' the OS install the driver. If you didn't purchase the server with a floppy drive, a USB floppy drive might work (not sure tho).
So I tried this, I downloaded the specific file needed and do the F6, and it uploads the file but then I get the same error.... Any ideas? Can I wipe the whole drive free and then try the install?
Wipe the drive with WIN98SE and Format Fat32.
Then once windows is loaded and boots fat32 copy the entire XP install cd onto C:\
Then Make an $OEM$ directory and do a sysprep install from C:\I386\WINNT /A
Copying the INF files for the raid into C:\I386 Might work also as you would then press F6 and point to C:\I386
Did this solution get adequately resolved in the manner proposed, either with FAT32 or NTFS? What about a thumb drive on a USB port?
Are there any other issues that came up in your experience with the XP + 2850 combo? How about the dual onboard NICs? What driver works for those?
I've got ten 2850 servers on order to act as compute nodes on a number-crunching cluster. Hope it works or I'm going to be real embarassed! Dell officially doesn't support XP on the PowerEdge, but I was told verbally it would work. Can't get it in writing I'll bet.
BTW, there is a "Hot Offers" special this week on the 2850, in the Small Business sub-site. What a deal!
Everything worked fine upon the installation, my only problem was I was not able to get the network cards to function fully. I could see everything on the network from the server, but the server was not visible on the network. I cannot figure it out still. If you have any ideas, let me know. Thanks!
This may be your lucky day! I went through a lot of grief to develop the following procedure.
First of all, you will need an internal Dell floppy drive in the 2850, to get the PERC4ei drivers loaded during the initial Windows XP installation. Won't work with a USB floppy drive or CDROM, I tried it.
I didn't try loading the drivers from a network drive.
Next, download drivers for the MegaRAID SCSI 320-2 from the lsilogic.com support site, where it has an XP section. For the time being the link is something like:
It is the same chip as the Dell Perc. Put the files on the floppy. Start Windows XP install from the CD, and wait briefly until it says to press F6 to load other drivers. Press F6. Wait a while more until it loads all kinds of other unneeded drivers . It will ask for the floppy, I think. Do what it says and that should be the end of the process!
Configuring the SCSI drives at boot time with the PERC BIOS setup was a challenge at first. The interface was not intuitive, so follow instructions carefully so that your setup is saved properly.
Figuring this out took me two or three days of research, trial and error, ordering and waiting for a floppy drive, etc. I even went as far as combining, converting, and rewriting Dell's Win2K3 server driver files to work with XP. But that shouldn't be necessary if you go straight to LSI.
I didn't attempt the Windows 98 technique offered previously in this thread. It seemed like a hassle to do so many computers that way.
I set up nine dual-Xeon 2850s for a high-performance computing cluster this way. Was a pain moving the floppy drive from machine to machine. If I'd known ahead of time, I might have paid the additional $20 or so so that each one could have it's own floppy drive to use once in the life of the computer. But what a waste of resources thanks to Microsoft!
The following might help if you have to setup several machines.
After installing XP and setting it up a lot of application software on one machine, I used some sort of Microsoft oem setup utility found on the install CD to prepare the hard disk for cloning and shut it down. Then I booted into DamnSmallLinux and cloned eight hard drives with the dd command.
All the machines booted fine, and I changed the IP addresses, etc. Problem arose when I got to entering the individual Windows product keys. I tried to change the original product key to the ones on the COA stickers with magicaljellybean, but that didn't work. I didn't understand the concept of SIDs, evidently. I resolved the problem by calling Microsoft's toll-free activation line, spoke with a helpful chap in India, and got all the machines manually fixed and activated in 20 minutes or so.
The machines have been performing admirably for almost three months, and I haven't seen anything out of order regarding the disk drives. Dell just released (April 6, 2006) a BIOS upgrade to correct some PERC problems. I'm not sure if I will apply the firmware flash or not. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it...."
FormatKing
3 Posts
0
December 9th, 2005 07:00
Hello,
If your bootdisk is on a raidcard you need to load the drivers first before Windows Setup can find the harddrive. When you enter Windows Setup it will ask you to press F2 (if I remember correctly) if you want to load drivers of add-on cards. Press F2, load the drivers of your add-on card and Windows Setup should be able to detect your harddrive.
speedstep
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December 9th, 2005 15:00
speedstep
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December 9th, 2005 16:00
Dev Mgr
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December 9th, 2005 16:00
pstolarz
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December 9th, 2005 20:00
speedstep
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December 10th, 2005 02:00
Then once windows is loaded and boots fat32 copy the entire XP install cd onto C:\
Then Make an $OEM$ directory and do a sysprep install from C:\I386\WINNT /A
Copying the INF files for the raid into C:\I386 Might work also as you would then press F6 and point to C:\I386
FormatKing
3 Posts
0
December 10th, 2005 07:00
FAT32 is soooo old, use NTFS ;)
cppwind
3 Posts
0
January 12th, 2006 20:00
Are there any other issues that came up in your experience with the XP + 2850 combo? How about the dual onboard NICs? What driver works for those?
I've got ten 2850 servers on order to act as compute nodes on a number-crunching cluster. Hope it works or I'm going to be real embarassed! Dell officially doesn't support XP on the PowerEdge, but I was told verbally it would work. Can't get it in writing I'll bet.
BTW, there is a "Hot Offers" special this week on the 2850, in the Small Business sub-site. What a deal!
Thanks in advance for any comments....
speedstep
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January 14th, 2006 12:00
pstolarz
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January 30th, 2006 13:00
kompahdre
2 Posts
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April 17th, 2006 20:00
Are you saying to fully install 98SE on the 2850?
Then format it as FAT32.
thanks for reading...
cppwind
3 Posts
0
April 17th, 2006 22:00
First of all, you will need an internal Dell floppy drive in the 2850, to get the PERC4ei drivers loaded during the initial Windows XP installation. Won't work with a USB floppy drive or CDROM, I tried it. I didn't try loading the drivers from a network drive.
Next, download drivers for the MegaRAID SCSI 320-2 from the lsilogic.com support site, where it has an XP section. For the time being the link is something like:
http://www.lsilogic.com/cm/License.do?url=/files/support/rsa/raid_drivers_32/win_xp/dr_xp_6.45.zip&prodName=MegaRAID%20SCSI%20320-2&subType=Driver
It is the same chip as the Dell Perc. Put the files on the floppy. Start Windows XP install from the CD, and wait briefly until it says to press F6 to load other drivers. Press F6. Wait a while more until it loads all kinds of other unneeded drivers .
It will ask for the floppy, I think. Do what it says and that should be the end of the process!
Configuring the SCSI drives at boot time with the PERC BIOS setup was a challenge at first. The interface was not intuitive, so follow instructions carefully so that your setup is saved properly.
Figuring this out took me two or three days of research, trial and error, ordering and waiting for a floppy drive, etc. I even went as far as combining, converting, and rewriting Dell's Win2K3 server driver files to work with XP. But that shouldn't be necessary if you go straight to LSI.
I didn't attempt the Windows 98 technique offered previously in this thread. It seemed like a hassle to do so many computers that way.
I set up nine dual-Xeon 2850s for a high-performance computing cluster this way. Was a pain moving the floppy drive from machine to machine. If I'd known ahead of time, I might have paid the additional $20 or so so that each one could have it's own floppy drive to use once in the life of the computer. But what a waste of resources thanks to Microsoft!
The following might help if you have to setup several machines.
After installing XP and setting it up a lot of application software on one machine, I used some sort of Microsoft oem setup utility found on the install CD to prepare the hard disk for cloning and shut it down. Then I booted into DamnSmallLinux and cloned eight hard drives with the dd command.
All the machines booted fine, and I changed the IP addresses, etc. Problem arose when I got to entering the individual Windows product keys. I tried to change the original product key to the ones on the COA stickers with magicaljellybean, but that didn't work. I didn't understand the concept of SIDs, evidently. I resolved the problem by calling Microsoft's toll-free activation line, spoke with a helpful chap in India, and got all the machines manually fixed and activated in 20 minutes or so.
The machines have been performing admirably for almost three months, and I haven't seen anything out of order regarding the disk drives. Dell just released (April 6, 2006) a BIOS upgrade to correct some PERC problems. I'm not sure if I will apply the firmware flash or not. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it...."
Let me know if the recipe doesn't work.
Ted Anderson