Problems with scripted install of W2k3

[Greg McDermid]

Hi,

I have upgraded my scripted install to use Smart Start 7.10, Scripting toolkit 2.4A for W2k3 (I need to redeploy some servers previously built with W2k and earlier ss/sstk). I am testing on a ML370G2, with 3 x 9.1 GB disks, configured as 3 x 8GB raid 0 (I have used other sizes, as well as raid 5). All partitions I format as FAT32 initially, as well as copy all I386, etc from the CD to C: before running the winnt setup (on 1st build, other builds use winnt32). I get a number of problems:

1. the w2k3 part of the install gives the following message:

Section Files.SCSI.cpq32fs2_000A of the INF files is invalid

I press enter and get a second message:

File caused and unexpected error (0) at
line 2240 in d:\srv03rtm\base\boot\setup\oemdisk.c.
Press any key to continue.

After pressing enter again the install seems to continue ok (sort of).

This is the default setting in the txtsetup.oem files. It will only give this message once, on the first build, even if I build 2 or 3 systems onto the one machine.

2. The install used to take, 1-2 hr per system, it can now take 5 or so hrs for the first system [winnt, claiming to be copying files]. Why is it so slow, or is it related to (1) above?

3. regardless of how many systems I put onto a single machine (1, 2, or 3), most have problems, except the last system on a multi-system machine. This failure is in the Microsoft distributed transaction coordinator (MS-DTC) - which fails to start. It complains about:

[system]

The Distributed Transaction Coordinator service terminated with service-specific error 3221229584 (0xC0001010).

[application]

The description for Event ID ( 4404 ) in Source ( MSDTC ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. The following information is part of the event: msdtc_trace : File: d:\srv03rtm\com\complus\dtc\dtc\trace\src\tracelib.cpp, Line: 1107, StartTrace Failed, hr=0x80070005

MS DTC log file not found. After ensuring that all Resource Managers coordinated by MS DTC have no indoubt transactions, please run msdtc -resetlog to create the log file.

*** Running this last bit doesn't seem to help? Why should I run this anyway, it is a new server build?

Any ideas? Regards,

Greg

[Donald Schofield_1]

quick note for the slow install - make sure you are running smartdrv with no switches before you run winnt. I had same type of problem with different errors on DL360 & 380 and very slow install. Regards donz

[Greg McDermid]

I had noticed the reference to loading smartdrv, in the forum before posting the above message. I have already included this, though it makes no difference to how long it takes to load. My impression still is that it is some sort of driver issue, related to the 2 error messages, and it only happens for the winnt build. Subsequent winnt32 builds do not get this error; aside from the fact only the last winnt32 build will work 100% (3) above. You will also notice that there is only a single ocurrence of cpq32fs2_000A within the txtsetup.oem, whereas other drivers get 2 or more references. Older versions of SmartStart had a couple of lines like:

[HardwareIds.scsi.cpq32fs2_000A]
id = "PCI\VEN_1000&DEV_000A","cpq32fs2"

this is no longer in the latest version [I would assume it to now be a default within windows server 2003, but am probably wrong here].