Installing Windows NT on a system with SCSI

[RalphTheCow]

I'm trying to install Windows NT 4.0 Server on an old Dell Poweredge 2300 with SCSI RAID drives. It currently has a functioning copy of Windows 2000 Server on it, so I know the drives work. The Windows NT installation screen goes through and says that SCSI drivers were installed, but then almost immediately it says there was no hard drive found. During the startup it goes through a whole bunch of SCSI messages, some of them errors.

Can anyone give me a hint? As you can tell, this isn't my forte but I've got the luck of the draw to be stuck trying to figure it out.

Thanks.

 

[heyheybooboo]

I'm kinda confused. Are you settinbg up a dual boot? This is my own scuzzy fud but here goes . . .

Win2k Server (Nice Try 5.0! 🙂 ) is installed on the first scsi disk. I'm guessing that the problem with the *dual boot* with NT 4.0 is that the SCSI bios detects the first SCSI disk as the boot device and that your NT4 OS drive ID ain't the first disk.

NT4 desognates drive letters in the order that the SCSI device driver is loaded. First scsi drive = c:\ = Win2k I bet.

The only thing I know to try would be to disable the first scsi drive (as the scsi bios loads at boot) forcing the next device up the ID chain into **first** (if that is where the NT4 OS is located). Is this what you want to do???

The only other thing I can think of is that the scsi drivers were not properly loaded during the NT4 install. You must copy your scsi/raid drivers onto a floppy proir to installing NT4 and as installation begins press F6 to install the **third party** drivers. You cannot trust NT4 to properly load them .

Good luck! I'm certain I've only added to your confusion 🙂

 

[daveshel]

You'll need to hit F6 near the beginning of the installation and feed it the SCSI drivers.

 

[RebateMonger]

If all you want to do is run NT Server, you could probably install Virtual Server on the Windows 2000 and just run NT inside of that. It might save some headaches.

 

[RalphTheCow]

Thanks, everyone. I gave up and installed it on a Dell GX1 box, but now I'm having trouble installing the video driver for the onboard ATI video. I downloaded the NT drivers from teh Dell site, but there is only an .inf file, no setup to run. I thought that running setup is how you install drivers in NT, but maybe not. Any ideas? When I try regular NT setup it says to use the Control Panel. The Devices icon just has a bunch of unintelligible short names,so that doesn't look too promising. Display has nothing. Now I remember how much I hated NT and 98!

 

[bob4432]

just out of curiosity, why NT?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: daveshel
You'll need to hit F6 near the beginning of the installation and feed it the SCSI drivers.

^ what he said, and to be more specific, you won't get a "press F6 to blah blah" prompt, you have to just do it anyway when it is prompting you to press a key for another reason (which I don't recall now, but it's right at the very start). So give that F6 key a workout 😀 or consider virtualizing your NT server like RebateMonger said.

 

[RalphTheCow]

Originally posted by: bob4432
just out of curiosity, why NT?

It's part of an industrial system that is not scheduled for an update, so it has to be NT. Yes, it's already on borrowed or even stolen time, I know.

BTW, there were two and guess what? That's right, as soon as the first was repaired, the other died! So now I'm back to the original problem, and it acts exactly the same way on an identical Dell 2300. NT Setup is is asking for the Hard Disk driver, and I even downloaded it from Dell, but instead of a driver disc, according the readme it is a boot disc to install microcode in firmware on the disc drives. But that should already be there, so I am thoroughly confused, as usual. I think I'll just try it on another box with IDE.

 

[rudder]

Remember? I just finish building a replacement BDC for our NT 4.0 domain. Luckily its an HP server and I just use the smartstart CD... so no hunting for drivers and crap.