Windows 2008 and 2003 on same RX2660

jackiechen858 — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 18:50:43 GMT

Hi Expert,

We have a rx2660 server with dual boot HP-UX and Windows 2003 OS installed. it has two logical drives , drive 0 for HP-UX, drive 1 for Windows 2003. Now we want to install windows 2008 as third OS, is this doable?

Here are what I have done:

1. I added one harddisk into the server and configured it as third Logical drive by ORCA.

2. updated system firmware to 4.15 ( I used the PF_CMERLSYS0415.iso file).

3. I tried several times to install from a 2008 DVD and 2008R2 sp1 DVD, they recoginzed the new drive ok, and copied/extracted installation files to the new drive, then it showed a error "windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installion" and failed.

4. downloaded HP SmartSetup iso IPF_CD_7.10.iso, chose "express setup"->"Microsoft windows OS Media", then it showed another error "There is more than one EFI system partition on the system. Windows cannot be installed in a system with this configuration."

I googled this error ane the closest informationI can find is :

http://data.versiontracker.com/drivers/autoExtract/hp/ftp2/pub/servers/software/WindowsIntegrity/SST...

Windows installation fails if there is another Windows installed on the system.
Symptoms: Windows installation doesn't go ahead. The following message is logged,
indicating the cause and suggesting an action:
"Another EFI System Partition (ESP) was found.
Cause: Windows fails to install if there are more than one EFI Partition
Action: Use diskpart to remove ESP from all disks except the target disk."

If I follow the suggestion to remove the 2003 disk's ESP ( EFI System partition?), will that cause 2003 OS not bootable?

Does this mean we can't have 2008 and 2003 on same box? They are for testing purpose, we just want to test our application on different windows IA64 platform.

Thanks!

topic Windows 2008 and 2003 on same RX2660 in Operating System - Microsoft

Windows 2008 and 2003 on same RX2660