Server 2012 Essentials needs you to load SATA drivers. *SOLVED - See Post #6*

[MichaelD]

Is this a rant or a request for help? Yes.

In this day and age, when Windows 7 (which is 3 years old if you count the Betas) has native SATA/ACHI drivers, I have to manually load SATA drivers for Server 2012 during the OS installation? Are you kidding me?

I downloaded the free trial of 2012 Essentials and tried to load it on my NAS (Gigabyte G41/ICH7-based MB). The OS couldn't see my SATA HD. OK. Over the next two hours I unzipped various Intel chipset/.inf drivers, loaded the files onto a USB stick and tried unsuccesfully to get the MB chipset recognized. I tried every single .inf file that had ICH7 even mentioned in the file. Then I tried ICH8/9/10 just for grins. I tried various versions of Intel chipset drivers dating from the latest on their website all the way back to 2009. Nuthin'. WTH? :|

This is the MB in question, in case anyone's interested:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128396

Sure, I could've set the SATA ports to IDE/Legacy mode...but then why am I running a modern OS?

Possibly, Server 2012 just doesn't like my "old tech" ICH7-based MB? It's not newer HW, but my NAS more than meets the minimum HW requirements for Server 2012. (2.2GHz C2Duo/2GB RAM/160GB system HD).

I have a newer MB/CPU/RAM I could use, but that's a lot of work to swap out all the guts just to try out a new OS. Ugh.

Any ideas?

 

[n0x1ous]

unfortunately no......installed without issue on my H77 Gigabyte board...

 

[MichaelD]

So, 2012 Setup saw your SATA right off the bat w/o loading drivers?

Thanks for the input. Your board is much newer than mine. I'm wondering if it's some unique incompatibility with my admittedly budget MB? I bought this MB for my NAS specifically b/c it has onboard video and is basically no-frills/low power. I have a hardware PCI-E RAID card in the single PCI-E slot that my actual "NAS" sits on.

I have an Asus PQ-5 Pro Turbo and a Q9550 I could throw in there...total overkill for file server duty...although I am toying with the idea of making the box a file/media server, which is why I'm looking at 2012 Essentials.

 

[n0x1ous]

So, 2012 Setup saw your SATA right off the bat w/o loading drivers?

Thanks for the input. Your board is much newer than mine. I'm wondering if it's some unique incompatibility with my admittedly budget MB? I bought this MB for my NAS specifically b/c it has onboard video and is basically no-frills/low power. I have a hardware PCI-E RAID card in the single PCI-E slot that my actual "NAS" sits on.

I have an Asus PQ-5 Pro Turbo and a Q9550 I could throw in there...total overkill for file server duty...although I am toying with the idea of making the box a file/media server, which is why I'm looking at 2012 Essentials.

Correct. Mode is set to AHCI as well and it didn't ask me to load any drivers or anything, but like you said, its a brand new board on intel's newest chipset. I built this new rig for 2012 Essentials and went with the i5-3450S because since this is more of a true server OS than a NAS or older WHS, with how long I plan to run this machine I think the quad will come in handy at some point.

So your Q9550 might be overkill now but might be the right choice for the long run. Good luck on the SATA driver issue, I actively read as much about 2012 Essentials as possible (I am waiting for the retail release before deploying) and I will post back here if I come across anything about your issue.

 

[MichaelD]

Thanks, n0X1ous. I actually just stumbled upon news of 2012 Essentials a few days ago. It looks to be the perfect replacment for Server 2003 that I run on my NAS. Although I do wish it was about $100 cheaper. Server 2003 was never really meant for such low-powered, dumbed-down home use like I'm doing with it; it's just better than XP for my needs and I already owned a license for it.

You're right about the Q9550 system potentially coming into "full use" down the road...depending on what i wind up doing with the system.

Getting back to the original issue: The ONLY thing I can think of is that POSSIBLY Server 2012 doesn't like SATA I drives. I have an old Maxtor 160GB SATA I drive that I'm trying to install Server 2012 on. The BIOS sees it just fine though. I don't think that is the issue, but worth mentioning. I have a "newer" 300GB Seagate SATA II drive that I will try tonight though, before swapping out the MB.

 

[MichaelD]

UPDATE: So I've determined that Server 2012 Essentials does not play well with SATA I hard drives.

"Mike...who has SATA I HDs anymore?!"

Me. Like 3 of them. Apparently they are good for paperweights and that's about it. I replaced the SATA I Maxtor with a SATA II Seagate 7200.9, 320GB drive and Halleluhiah, setup sees it!

But now I get the dreaded Windows 8 error "We were unable to create a new partition or locate an existing one." I did this fix action here
http://blogs.technet.com/b/asiasupp...nstall-windows-8-cp.aspx?PageIndex=2#comments

and it still didn't work. Disabled SMART in the BIOS; still doesn't work. IMHO Server 2012 is NOT ready for prime time. Gotta jump through all these hoops just to get the OS to LOAD? Are you kidding me? No Enterprise IT Tech would even bother past the second or third try....at work, anyway.

I am reburning the image with a diff program on the odd chance that somehow my install media was bad. Doubtful, since it boots up fine. AFter that, I will DL the .iso again and look for a checksum. AFter that I will unplug the HW RAID card that is also installed on that MB. AFter that, I will try it on another computer entirely and if THAT doesn't work, I'm loading XP.

FINAL FIX ACTION: Two things: I had to remove the SATA I HD b/c 2012 setup wouldn't see it no matter if I loaded the correct SATA drivers for my MB. THEN, I had to remove my HW RAID card (3Ware 9650-SE) EVEN THOUGH setup doesn't even see it. With a SATA II HD in there, setup would see the drive without having me install SATA drivers (as it should be!) but gave me the "Can't create partitions..." error. Side Note: The HW RAID card only had to be removed during the install and initial OS configuration. After the OS was installed, I reinstalled the card and it works perfectly with the OS.

The OS is installing now.

STILL A HUGE FAIL in my book. On how many actual servers can you remove the RAID card? You can't b/c most have onboard...though I'd imagine you MIGHT be able to disable it in the server's BIOS...never tried that at work though. On the internet there are roughly 20 different "voodoo fix actions" for this problem and everyone seems to have a different "Doing this fixed it." Remove RAID card. Unplug all other drives. Disable USB. Disable SMART. Stick tongue in empty RAM socket. Pft. IOW, NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME. It took all of last night and half of this night to get to this point. It better be worth it. OK, so it's loading. Now let's run it for a few days and see what the fuss is about.