topic Virtual A: drive - installing Windows 2003 in BladeSystem - General

Virtual A: drive - installing Windows 2003

Ed Totman — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:38:26 GMT

I have a c3000 with BL460c G1 blades and Emulex LPe1105-HP HBA's. I have installed linux on several blades to boot from SAN, so the fiber switch, SAN, and the blades are configured correctly, but I cannot install Windows 2003 Standard. There are no local drives on the blades. I cannot load fiber HBA drivers using the virtual A: drive. It seems to me that Windows does not recognize the A: drive. When I mount the A: drive in linux it works fine, however it's mounted as a USB device (I think). Could this be the problem? Suggestions appreciated.

Re: Virtual A: drive - installing Windows 2003

Víctor Cespón — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:50:16 GMT

Can you try to perform the installation booting with Smartstart CD? It should copy Smart Array drivers to the disk, so you won't need a floppy drive to load the drivers.

Re: Virtual A: drive - installing Windows 2003

Ed Totman — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:06:10 GMT

Thanks for the reply. I tried the HP Smartstart CD but it did not recognize the SAN storage either. Again, if I load linux on the same blade it sees the storage.

I've called HP many times regarding this issue. They're trying to be helpful but so far no one has a solution.

Re: Virtual A: drive - installing Windows 2003

Raghuarch — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:20:09 GMT

Hi,

Did you try from the iLO to mount the Floppy drive A.
If you are using C3000 DVD drive Disconnect the DVD drive when you press F6 and it asks for the Floppy.
Once the Drivers are loaded you can connect it and it should proceed.

If you are using a Front-dongle to install the OS it will mount the Virtual floppy drive.

Note: You can mount only one at a time the DVD drive of C3000 or the Virtual media of iLO.

Regards,
Raghuarch

Re: Virtual A: drive - installing Windows 2003

Ed Totman — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:19:44 GMT

That's a great idea. When prompted for additional drivers I disconnected the DVD and connected the local A: drive. The physical drive light comes on when I mount the virtual A: drive, but when I press ENTER in windows setup the screen blanks for a second then I'm prompted to insert a disk in A:. I know the disk is good and it contains the fiber HBA drivers I downloaded from HP at the root of the drive. I'm stumped.

Directory of A:\

09/19/2007 10:58 AM 19,977 cp008234.xml
09/19/2007 03:58 AM 11,122 cpqfcac.cat
09/10/2007 10:31 AM 5,954 cpqfcac.inf
09/10/2007 10:31 AM 62,976 cpqfcac.sys
03/28/2007 09:54 AM 233,504 cpqsetup.exe
08/20/2007 10:53 PM 344,064 Event Log Codes for Cpqfcac.doc
10/19/2006 11:07 AM 335,872 generic.dll
09/19/2007 10:58 AM 175 install.xml

Re: Virtual A: drive - installing Windows 2003

Ed Totman — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:11:06 GMT

I tried a new computer with a new floppy and floppy drive. Same results. The Windows installation does not read anything from the virtual A: drive.

Re: Virtual A: drive - installing Windows 2003

William E Howard — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:15:18 GMT

I've had this issue before. The only way I was able to resolve it was literally sticking a USB Floppy drive onto the Local I/O cable during the install. Not exactly a choice way of doing it, but it works.

Re: Virtual A: drive - installing Windows 2003

James ~ Happy Dude — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:33:42 GMT

Hello Ed,
Loading of Virtual media has ran into issues & is in question. The Next firmware release may solve all this; I believe the beta version is under the lens(testing). In the meantime the solutions provided by others are useful.

:) Regards.

Re: Virtual A: drive - installing Windows 2003

Massing Stefan — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:37:40 GMT

...you need nlite!!
make your own windows 2003 cd.
load the emulex drivers + as source the W2k3 CD in nlite and generate an iso-file.
burn your new boot-cd and install windows server.