Trouble installing windows 2003 on poweredge 2950

[Red Squirrel]

I'm trying to install Windows using the disc that came with Dell, but it still refuses to find the drive. It wants me to do the whole F6 thing which requires a floppy drive (this is so stupid, it's 2009! why are we still relying on floppies?) and there is no USB floppy drive here.

I tried to use a USB key for kicks but of course it does not find it as it only looks for a floppy.

What is another way I can get windows on that machine?

 

[Billb2]

What driver are you trying to F6?
If it's a SATA driver, they are native to XP since sp1. If you have XP pre sp1 you could slipstream an installation to avoid the floppy requirement.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It's a perc 6 controller. There are about 20 of them on the dell site but don't think it's even trying to access the key. It just wants a floppy (which it can't get, there is no floppy drive, and no connection for one). MS needs to get with the times and change that process. Lot of people don't bother putting floppies on their machines anymore.