DL140 with SATA controller

[Tony_281]

I have a new DL140 with 8 Port SATA controller to run two SATA drives in RAID-1 config.

When I boot the server with Win2k3 Server CD I press F6 so I can specify a driver for the SATA controller, otherwise it can't see the hard drives. But now...the DL140 has no floppy drive, and the win2k3 does not even offer the CD drive as an alternative path. All I can do at this point is to abort the installation.

How do I get this driver loaded?
Please advise.

[Miika T]

You have you use USB floppy drive. When you create the floppy with the SATA driver, make sure you use the same USB floppy drive and format the disk using the very same drive before copying the files to the disk...alternatively you might want to get a floppy drive option for the DL140.

-Miika

[Tony_281]

Thanks for the reply.

I got hold of a USB floppy drive and fomatted the disk with the same drive as you mentioned. Does this actually make a difference?

Anyway...while the Win2k3 CD loaded after bootup, I pressed F6 to specify the SATA controller driver. It saw the USB floppy fine and loaded the driver. But a few steps futher in the Win2k3 setup it asks for the floppy again. When I press enter on this option, nothing happens. It does not even make an attempt to read the floppy.
Now I'm stuck again.

I even rebooted the server and started all over again, just to get stuck at the same point.

How do I get past this point now?
Please advise.

[raadek]

You can use this guide to slipstream drivers into W2K3 CD:
http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/36/

Rgds.

[majormesses]

Tony:

We had this same problem. Unfortunately, you must use an HP floppy drive if you want it to recognize it at both points during the installation. Otherwise, as you found out, it works fine the first time but bugs out later. Once you get the HP drive it works fine. Might be easier than slipstream...

[Gus Kwong]

Well, similar thing happened to me when I was using the Sun x4100 but hopefully same rule applies...

If you have LO100i Advanced Pack, then there is an option of mapping the floppy drive --- very easy.

If not, try power off everything, plug in your USB floppy drive and then power it up (try several floppy disks too). It looks like there is a new bios patch from last month, and may as well give that a go, too.