Drive invisible

[witch]

I have a server (Dell Poweredge SC430) that has come from our admin network. I have brought it home to wipe it and put XP on it to use as an ordinary machine on our curriculum network.

It had Server 2003 on it which had to go (no licence anyway before anyone says anything).

It wiped fine but when I tried to install XP the hard drive wasn't detected. Tried the bios, loading drivers but could only find drivers for Server 2003 (the hard drive is a SCUSI drive) and eventually gave up and put an IDE drive in that I had.

 

Why couldn't I get it working with the SCUSI drive? Did I need to get special XP drivers and where would I have got them?

As it happens it doesn't matter as the drive I have put in is only a little bit smaller than the SCUSI anyway, and it came out of an old school machine so I haven't had to buy anything.

I am interested, that's all!

[sdc]

In my experience Windows installs require an additional driver from the hardware manufacturer before they'll see a SCSI drive. When the blue-screen text based part of the installation starts up, it offers you the opportunity to hit F6 (from memory!) to install a SCSI or other third-party driver. It's at this point you stick in a suitable floppy disk with the SCSI driver on it. Generally, otherwise, Windows can't access SCSI drives.

 

Hope that helps!

[INeedAUsername]

i know HP servers had seperate drivers for their XP SCSCI drivers. Not sure about DELL though

[tech_guy]

Any good:

 

SATA Driver for SC430 XP install. - DELL COMMUNITY

[witch]

Thanks everyone but as I say I have put an IDE drive in now:

HOWEVER; still got a problem -although I have managed to install XP OK and everything works, when you boot the machine it stops because it can't see the drive and needs an F1 to continue. Once you do this all is well and it can see the drives and boots properly.

SO..do I need a new driver and if so where from - I cannot find anything suitable.

Also in Device Manager it shows a problem with the VGA but I cannot find the correct solution.

This was supposed to be a simple job....

[SYNACK]

The server is probably set to use the SCSI drives first, you may need to go into the BIOS and change the primary boot controller to the IDE one to make it work. The SCSI drives are usually noticibly faster though.

 

Often the server 2003 drivers can be made to work on XP:

Drivers & Downloads

 

Here is the video driver:

Dell - Support

 

if the .inf files are not compressed it will probably work even if the installer does not like XP

 

This looks to be the XP ones for download anyway:

XGI Volari Z7/Z9 v1.05.54 6.14.10.1050 (Windows), from XGI Technology, Inc. - Free Downloads on ZDNet | Shareware, Trialware, Evaluation Software

 

Edit:

The latest vendor ones appear to be aavlible here:

http://www.xgitech.com/sd/sd_download3.asp?CTID={C4B699AC-AC34-487D-B38A-4AAF4C042660}&PType_3={56596F10-7B38-4C48-9DDF-21A8C4CB55D5}

Edited February 15, 2009 by SYNACK

[witch]

thanks Synack but unfortunately none of your downloads worked: the machine is booting off the right drive as windows loads but you still have to press F1 to get it going.

Any more ideas, anyone, PLEASE

[Chris_Jones]

With Dell machines (certainly the ones we have) if any Drive interfaces are enabled, but do not have drives connected the machine thinks something is wrong and waits for an F1 to continue.

 

Try going into the BIOS and turning off all the Drives/Controllers that do not have a device connected (i.e. everything except the CD-ROM and HDD)

[witch]

I have got rid of any drives that are not connected but it is still doing it!

 

 

Update: I just went round again and found one had 're-appeared' so I deleted it and, at the moment, all seems to be well - no F1!!!!

 

Thanks guys

Edited February 23, 2009 by witch