Installing Win2003 on a SATA RAID without a floppy?? 3

[cpjust]

Hi,
Just when I thought Microsoft couldn't get any dumber... :-(

I have a Dell PowerEdge 1800 with 2 SATA drives in a RAID 1 configuration.
It currently has XP Pro installed, and I want to replace it with Win2003 R2 so I can see the whole 8GB of RAM.

If I boot up with the Win2003 CD, it doesn't see any hard drives (since they're SATA). If I press F6 to load the SATA drivers, the ONLY option you have to load them is through a floppy drive!! WTF?? My company was either too cheap to add a $15 floppy drive when they bought this machine or they didn't think it would ever be required... So I'm totally screwed.

When looking through the BIOS, I noticed a setting for "USB flash drive emulation type"; so I tried setting it to "Floppy" to see if Windows could use that instead of a real floppy... but of course my luck is 0 for 2. It looks like it tries to read the USB drive, but then it says "This disk cannot be read because it contains an unrecognized file system."

OK so now, other than finding a real floppy drive..., is there anything else I can try to get this to install?

 

[markdmac]

This is not an issue of Microsoft being dumb. This is an issue with your hardware and you not being aware of how to configure the USB as bootable to be detected as a floppy. The setting int he BIOS is only PART of the solution.

Take a look here, this should help you.

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

An alternative to this would be to purchase an external USB floppy drive to use when setting up servers.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[Roadki11]

Could try this also, just slipstream the drivers into a new bootable install disc.

http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html

RoadKi11

 

[cpjust]

This is not an issue of Microsoft being dumb.

Actually, the 'dumbness' I was referring to is the fact that they only support floppy drives. Since most systems these days don't have floppy drives, why not copy the drivers from other things, like CD, USB flash drives...?

 

[cpjust]

I can try making the USB drive bootable, but I don't see why that would matter since I'm not trying to boot from the USB drive?

 

[markdmac]

It changes the file system of the USB drive so it should be detected as an installed floppy.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[RobBentley]

I know its of no help to your current problem... however I can confirm i've tested Windows Server 2008 and it Microsoft have finally added in support for loading RAID drivers from USB Sticks / Memory cards / CDs (etc).

 

[cpjust]

Well that's good to hear about 2008.

I tried some of those links to making my USB drive bootable, but it didn't work. If I kept trying, I'm sure I could eventually find a way to do it, but I just convinced my manager to spend $30 on a USB floppy drive.
I've never used an external floppy, so I was just wondering if there is anything I need to do in the BIOS to get it to work, or should it automatically work on any machine without any special configuration? Also, will Windows see it as drive A: or as a regular drive like D:, E:...?

 

[markdmac]

It should work right out of the box without drivers. Not sure on the drive letter, but if you have no floppy then it should take on drive A.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.