RAID drivers on a 2003 Server installation 1

[gmiles]

Hi all,
Question for you. I'm trying to install 2003 Enterprise on a PowerEdge 2850 and am having some difficulty. The system has two drives on a PERC 4e/Di, installed as RAID 1. In boot, they show as being 1 logical drive being found and controlled by the BIOS, which I think is what I want.

The problem is, additional drivers can only be installed in the 2003 installation by floppy, so the 2003 installation never sees my array. The machine doesn't have a floppy drive, and we don't have any USB floppy drives on hand (besides, I hear they don't work for this anyway).

I've tried slipstreaming the drivers into a CD image, but that hasn't worked either... There are enough steps I might have screwed something up. The disk boots fine, but still doesn't see the array.

Anyone have any other suggestions for getting 2003 to install properly? I would have thought that you could just plug in a flash drive and have the drivers on there, but it doesn't seem that Microsoft was quite that expedient.

Thanks in advance!
-gmiles

 

[itsp1965]

I have had to use a USB floppy on Sun x4200 server and this worked well for me. Bare in mind not all USB floppies are compatible (I am using Targus)and only certain USB ports on servers allow for this.
If you followed the procedure to create a slipstream install it should work unless the driver is not correct.
I don't know if Dell has an assisted install CD, but you may want to try that for performing your install.
Hope this helps.

 

[Roadki11]

Not sure if this post will help you or not, seemed to help the guy that had the same issue.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1319728

RoadKi11

 

[gmiles]

Thanks for the tips. Unfortunately, I had no success slipstreaming. Additionally, Dell's option to emulate a floppy drive with a flash drive was also unsuccessful. However, after spending some time chatting with Dell, the tech I spoke to sent me a "Mass storage driver on CD" utility that worked just fine.
It loads a linux pre-boot, and then you switch CD's and launch the OS installation from there. It was a little buggy, but it got the job done. Unfortunately, it needs to be obtained from a Dell tech, it isn't posted (or, as far as I could tell, it isn't even mentioned) anywhere.

 

[TheLad]

I would suggest getting the proper install media from Dell as that will have all the drivers all ready included.

This link below may be an ISO download of what you need:

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...1&vercnt=3&formatcnt=1&libid=36&fileid=169134

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"Insert funny comment in here!"
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[gmiles]

I was eventually informed of OpenManage, the CD that does it all and avoids all sorts of hassle. I'm not sure why the Dell people I talked to didn't mention it.
Thanks, TheLad, I wish I'd heard that sooner.
-gmiles

 

[chronicle]

Had exactly the same problem yesterday. Ended up I salvaged a floppy from an old PC which was about to go to the dump and installed it temporarily with a ribbon cable. Took it out again when I finished.
This problem has been fixed in Vista which will find the drivers anywhere, so presumably will be fixed in Longhorn as well.

 

[Daveyd123]

Use Server Administrator. The CD should have come with the server. It's great to prep servers. It's basically an unattend install