WARNING: Dell 9th Generation Servers & Microsoft SBS 2003
Discussion
One to watch out for people! I have just purchased a £4,500 Dell PowerEdge 2950 - their latest and greatest server which has just been released to replace the 8th generation 2850. I also purchased separately Micosoft Small Business Server 2003 Premium and 20 additional CALs for another £2,000 or so. So, a fair investment.
Imagie my horror when I attempted to install SBS on the 2950 only to find out that the Dell installation utility doesn't support SBS, though it does support Windows 2003 Server, which is much the same thing.
So, I had to install by booting from the SBS DVD. Sadly, that informed me I had no HDDs in my server, which of course meant I needed to install the RAID drivers. I downloaded the drivers from Dell and created a floppy as Windows will only look on the A: drive. Of course, this being a state-of-the-art server, it didn't have a floppy drive.
Fortunately, my external USB floppy drive came to the rescue - I connected the floppy drive, rebooted the server, pressed F6 at the right moment and told it to install the drivers. I'm sure it would have done, but it couldn't see the A: drive.
At this point I got up to speak to Dell again and caught my (bare) foot on the edge of the server front panel, relieving me of copious amounts of skin and several litres of air as I voiced my anger/frustration to the world.
We have GOLD support on the server, so I spoke to a knowledgable technician immediately, who was clearly growing more horrified as he realised that indeed, if you didn't order a floppy drive with their brand-spanking new servers and wanted to install SBS, you were fooked. Ironic I thought.
I ended up having to use the Dell installation software to install Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition. Not everyone could have done this as most people wouldn't have a copy lying around. Indeed, I didn't, I had to use my MSDN DVDs to create a Windows Server 2003 SE DVD. Of course, it wasn't that simple as when I performed the installation I was informed files were missing. There is a huge discussion on the causes here for those who are interested. Fortunately, the installation files that were missing for me were not a problem as they related to hardware I had no intention of installing.
Once the Windows Server 2003 SE install was completed (not a quick job) I then had to install SBS over the top from my original MS DVD, which should have the bonus of meaning the missing installation files could be replaced.
So, as of the time of writing I have been at this for a few hours and SBS is in (I hope!) the final stages of installing.
The lesson? If you buy a PowerEdge x950 and intend to install your own OS, particularly SBS, the floppy drive is highly recommend until Dell, who admit the 2950 is not certified for SBS use yet (
) decide to sort their installation CD out and ensure that by far the most popular Windows Server install works with their new top-of-the-range hardware.
And... breathe...
Imagie my horror when I attempted to install SBS on the 2950 only to find out that the Dell installation utility doesn't support SBS, though it does support Windows 2003 Server, which is much the same thing.
So, I had to install by booting from the SBS DVD. Sadly, that informed me I had no HDDs in my server, which of course meant I needed to install the RAID drivers. I downloaded the drivers from Dell and created a floppy as Windows will only look on the A: drive. Of course, this being a state-of-the-art server, it didn't have a floppy drive.
Fortunately, my external USB floppy drive came to the rescue - I connected the floppy drive, rebooted the server, pressed F6 at the right moment and told it to install the drivers. I'm sure it would have done, but it couldn't see the A: drive.
At this point I got up to speak to Dell again and caught my (bare) foot on the edge of the server front panel, relieving me of copious amounts of skin and several litres of air as I voiced my anger/frustration to the world.
We have GOLD support on the server, so I spoke to a knowledgable technician immediately, who was clearly growing more horrified as he realised that indeed, if you didn't order a floppy drive with their brand-spanking new servers and wanted to install SBS, you were fooked. Ironic I thought.
I ended up having to use the Dell installation software to install Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition. Not everyone could have done this as most people wouldn't have a copy lying around. Indeed, I didn't, I had to use my MSDN DVDs to create a Windows Server 2003 SE DVD. Of course, it wasn't that simple as when I performed the installation I was informed files were missing. There is a huge discussion on the causes here for those who are interested. Fortunately, the installation files that were missing for me were not a problem as they related to hardware I had no intention of installing.
Once the Windows Server 2003 SE install was completed (not a quick job) I then had to install SBS over the top from my original MS DVD, which should have the bonus of meaning the missing installation files could be replaced.
So, as of the time of writing I have been at this for a few hours and SBS is in (I hope!) the final stages of installing.
The lesson? If you buy a PowerEdge x950 and intend to install your own OS, particularly SBS, the floppy drive is highly recommend until Dell, who admit the 2950 is not certified for SBS use yet (
) decide to sort their installation CD out and ensure that by far the most popular Windows Server install works with their new top-of-the-range hardware. And... breathe...
...and I'm finished!
The server is defragging as I write.
It's quite amazing really - a high speed DVD drive, 4GB of RAM, 15,000rpm SAS HDDs in RAID5, 2 dual-core processors and a dedicated 10Mb/s Internet connection and it still takes hours and hours to install a server, apply patches and perform basic configuration.
The server is defragging as I write.
It's quite amazing really - a high speed DVD drive, 4GB of RAM, 15,000rpm SAS HDDs in RAID5, 2 dual-core processors and a dedicated 10Mb/s Internet connection and it still takes hours and hours to install a server, apply patches and perform basic configuration.
arfur said:
You have to enable USB support in the bios first and then it will see your memory stick as an A drive. Had this a while back, spent a couple of hours messing about until it worked ...
Good old Dell .. never ones to sell stuff that is not compatible !
Good old Dell .. never ones to sell stuff that is not compatible !
That's the thing, there is a setting in the BIOS which was the first thing we tried and it didn't work. I didn't mention that I also tried a USB key instead of a USB floppy, but that didn't work either.
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