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Dell SMTD Stalled at Patching File System Boot Sector

N

NoodleTech

Golden Member
I just received my Dell Poweredge T110 server in the mail and I popped in the Dell SMTD 6.1.0 CD and went through the setup and prepping process for installing Server 2003 R2 x64.

Now SMTD is stuck at "Patching File System Boot Sector" and has stayed at 15% for two hours or so.

Should it be taking this long? The hard drive activity light is off and so is the optical drive's activity light. I tried ejecting the DVD but the drive will not respond.
 
I use a lot of Dell servers, but I had to look up what an SMTD is. What operation were you performing that says it's "Patching File System Boot Sector"?
 
I was running the Dell Systems Build and Update Utility and I was having it "Configure Server OS Installation." I entered the date and time, selected Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 and then it prompted me to select or enter boot partition size. I dragged the slider to the max (152GB i think) and entered the rest of the info and hit apply.

It began to configure everything and format the drive and got stuck at "Patching File System Boot Sector" for several hours. I held the power button and shut the server down because it was taking way too long and started the process up again. This time I used 20GB for the partition size instead of 152 (max) and it worked fine. Could the size of the partition be the problem? I really would like to use 152GB for the OS since I have two 1TB hard drives for all my data.
 
Sorry, I can't be of much help. I think I've only tried the "Dell Systems Build and Update Utility" one time, and that was just playing with it. I'm kinda' afraid of it. I do all my server setups completely manually. I usually download all the drivers manually, too, rather than using the Dell driver disk. I have used the Driver disk when I can't figure out exactly which model NICs are on the motherboard.

I also don't put the Dell Diagnostics partition on the drive. I've had that partition get in the way later on.

Yeah, I wouldn't put a 20 GB boot partition on anything nowadays.
 
Oh no problem. The only reason why I used the Dell Systems Build Utility is because the server would crash booting off the Windows Server 2003 disk because the SATA controller was set to AHCI and the Server 2003 CD lacks a driver.

Any ideas how to work around this besides changing AHCI to ATA in BIOS? I know pressing F6 is used for loading any additional drivers but I've never done that before so would I just press F6 and then pop the dell systems build CD in? That would contain the AHCI driver correct?

Just curious... Why are you afraid of the Dell utility?
 
NoodleTech said:
I know pressing F6 is used for loading any additional drivers but I've never done that before so would I just press F6 and then pop the dell systems build CD in? That would contain the AHCI driver correct?
Click to expand...
Windows Server 2003, like XP, is not capable of grabbing a "missing" disk controller driver from a CD/DVD or USB stick. It can ONLY read them from a floppy disk. Some (not all) USB floppy drives can be used for this, but the safest thing is to temporarily hook up a floppy drive.

You can also add disk controller drivers into the Server 2003 Install CD. I'd use NLite. Supposedly it works. I've used NLite to slipstream Dell CERC controller drivers into Server 2003 Install CDs, but I don't know if I've ever actually tested the result.
 
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Oh okay thanks for the tip. Would I just drag and drop the driver to the floppy disk? I'm guessing you can't use the .exe driver downloaded from the dell website correct? Where would I find the SATA AHCI driver that windows can use?
 
I don't know which disk controller I'm using. I entered my service tag on the dell drivers website and it gives me drivers for a SAS 5/E Adapter, SAS 5/iR Adapter, SAS 6/iR Adapter, and PERC S100/300 Adapter. I looked in device manager on my temporary server 2003 installation on the server and it says under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers: Intel PCH SATA AHCI Controller so I don't know which it is and which one to download.

I purchased the server from dell with only 1 160GB hard drive configured so no RAID or anything..
 
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Okay I just tried pressing F6 and loading drivers off a USB floppy drive but the server doesn't detect the drive. I also tried slipstreaming the SAS 5/E drivers onto the server 2003 CD but I get a blue screen error which means it's the wrong driver.
 
Not all USB floppy drives will work with the "F6" in XP/2003. Microsoft has published a list of the ones that work in one of their Knowledgebase articles.

As I'd stated in your other thread, I'm not convinced that your problem is with disk controller drivers. I've never seen a bluescreen during an XP/2003 INSTALL operation that was caused by a lack of a disk controller driver. If the Installer can't find a driver, the Installer will say, "Jeepers, I couldn't find any disks."

I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but I've never seen it....

I just noted your mention of:
"I looked in device manager on my temporary server 2003 installation on the server and it says under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers: Intel PCH SATA AHCI Controller so I don't know which it is and which one to download."

If you are saying that Server 2003 installed and Server 2003 R2 doesn't, then the problem is likely something else besides disk controller drivers.

I've found a couple of posts from this year of folks having the same problem you are, but no solutions. Actually, I've got two T110 servers on order for a client, but they've got 2008 R2 pre-installed.
 
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Thanks for the tips. I was reading on slickdeals and fatwallet forums in the thread about the deal on the T110 and others were experiencing the same problems. I will give server 2008 a go.
 
If it's the integrated disk controller, then it's the perc s100 controller. I think the perc s300 is an add-on adapter. Doesn't matter, 'cuz they use the same Server 2003 32-bit drivers.

There are drivers for these on Dell's site. I still recommend just temporarily attaching a floppy disk on a standard cable if you want to be SURE that you can feed it the drivers.
 
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RebateMonger said:
If it's the integrated disk controller, then it's the perc s100 controller. I think the perc s300 is an add-on adapter. Doesn't matter, 'cuz they use the same Server 2003 32-bit drivers.

There are drivers for these on Dell's site. I still recommend just temporarily attaching a floppy disk on a standard cable if you want to be SURE that you can feed it the drivers.
Click to expand...

The PERC S100 driver is only used if the BIOS is set to RAID mode and you've configured the virtual disks in the RAID BIOS. If it's AHCI, you want to F6 the Intel AHCI driver. ATA will just work.

You are correct about the PERC S300.
 
NoodleTech said:
I slipstreamed the Intel drivers from intel's website and it finally worked! Thanks!
Click to expand...
Glad you got it working. Sorry for bad driver advice. I never use ACHI. I only use IDE-compatability mode or RAID. Maybe that's why I've never seen a "7B" error caused by a missing disk controller driver.
 
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