On Clean Server 2003 Install, Windows Cannot Find Any Drives

Question

Apologies, as I'm sure this is a newbie-style question --

I just inherited a Dell PowerEdge 1750 with a couple of 73GB drives that I think I've configured for RAID 1 (using its PERC 4/Di RAID controller BIOS utility), but when I attempt to boot to a Windows Server 2003 CD-ROM, the Setup complains about not finding any drives. I don't have the machine in front of me, but I believe the error message was essentially:

Windows could not find any hard drives on your system. If there are hard drives, check to make sure they're configured correctly. Setup cannot continue.

I'm pretty sure the drives are configured correctly, though -- they appear as one logical drive during the startup sequence, and in the RAID setup, and the Initialization and Consistency Checks all seemed to go fine. I'm sure there's something simple I'm forgetting. Anyone seen this before? What to do?

Thanks in advance!

Solution 1

You want to grab a Dell Server Install CD from somewhere like here, easier than fooling around with F6 and floppy disks. Just boot from the CD and it will walk you through the process, load drivers (including drivers for other hardware like your NIC, etc) and give you a functional machine at the end of it.

Solution 2

During the Install startup you can select (I think) F6 to install drivers. Alternately you can use the Dell boot CD's to prepare the system for an OS, which will walk you through the steps to install Windows Server with the correct RAID Drivers.

Comments

[Spence]

+1 - You want to use OpenManage Server Assistant to setup Dell servers running Windows. It makes the installs go a lot smoother and you don't have to monkey around w/ F6 floppies. Dell doesn't install a bunch of garbage like some older server bootstrap CDs did (I'm looking at you, Compaq), either.

[silvesthu]

+1, for OpenManage, IMO it speeds up the install process aswell

[Christian Nunciato]

Worked like a charm! Thanks much -- this saved me a ton of time.