Help installing windows on DELL server

[morrows]

Hi everyone,

I have a Dell server. It is a PIII 800mhz, with three 10g hard drives, SCSI. According to Dell, this server was “made for Windows Server 2000”. During this server’s use time, it was always on Windows Server 2000, and eventually someone installed another PIII 800, making it a dual processor machine. I recently acquired this server, and I am trying to install Windows onto it, however I have ran into some problems.

First, I used to Dell setup CD, to setup the RAID-5. After this, I used the Dell system setup, to help install Windows Server 2003. Windows Server 2003 fully installed, however when it first tried to go into windows, before I even got to the login screen, I got a blue screen of death saying something like “winlogon.exe failed”. I investigated the problem, and found it was probably a bad windows install, especially since I used to Dell CD to help install it.

I proceeded to delete the drive partitions, setup the RAID-5 again, and start over. This time, I installed straight using the Windows Server 2003 CD. The installation hung while It was installing Windows Server 2003 with 37 minutes remaining. I let it try to install for several hours, but it did not move. I now decided to try Windows Server 2000.

Once again, I deleted the drive partitions, and setup RAID-5 again. I used the Dell system setup, and installed Windows Server 2000. This time, it hung for hours at 39 minutes remaining.

Does anyone have any idea what this could be? Is there anything else I can do to try and determine the problem? Thank you.

 

[maultier]

Could be you just have a flaky drive. - You could try going into the raid controller and check out the disks you are using with the Scsi utilities.
It might be worth considering to set up the os on a single drive and use the remaining two in a mirror to protect your data. The down side is that you'd have to rebuild the OS disk if it failed.
It could also be a driver issue. Download the latest driver from Dell and configure the system using that driver.

 

[NickFerrar]

Yeah start with updating all the firmware (BIOS, backplane, PERC controller etc.). What actual model number is it?

 

[morrows]

I have updated all of the firmware....the Service Tag is gh7sd01
I still have the same problem

 

[morrows]

UPDATE:
I put in 2 different HDs and did a raid 1, windows is still hanging when installing. Win2003 after first reboot during installation just sits at "39 minutes remaining". Win2000 just sits on "please wait" after the installation. The HDs keep activating constantly during "please wait" but it's been hours.
Any ideas?

 

[LawnBoy]

I would think that W2K or 2K3 would have the appropriate drivers for whatever PERC you're using, but maybe not. Have you tried downloading the PERC driver from Dell and using it instead of the Win supplied driver?

 

[morrows]

Are you refering to the PERC firmware? Or is there a PERC driver where I can push F6 during the windows install, and install with a floppy?

 

[NickFerrar]

Yes there's a PERC Windows driver you should use if manually installing Windows (via the F6 prompt as you mention). If you're installing off the Dell install CD though this shouldn't be required as it does it for you.