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WHS install - SATA drives?

Homerboy

Homerboy

Lifer
It's been a long while since I've done a fresh install of WHS. Does anyone recall if it can see SATA ports/drives out of the box or do I have to slipstream drivers? This would be on a DFI LANPARTY UT nForce4 motherboard.

Thanks in advance!
 
On an nForce4 board I would lean towards needing to load the sata drivers during install. Those drivers were never included in XP and Server 2003(WHS) is fairly similar as far as drivers go.
 
BTA said:
On an nForce4 board I would lean towards needing to load the sata drivers during install. Those drivers were never included in XP and Server 2003(WHS) is fairly similar as far as drivers go.
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well I have no floppy drive so can't load during install. I'll have to slipstream them (which is a slight pain with WHS IIRC). Stupipd floppies and SATA!!!
 
You can't use F6 drivers in WHS, you must slipstream them. I know it presents the F6 option but it just doesn't work due to the way they customize server 2003 to make it into WHS, stop error 7B every time when I tried it. This is the easiest method I know of and you can go a little beyond and make your disk bootable but it is easy enough to do the disk swap. I used this to slipstream the AHCI drivers for the ICH9R chipset (not using RAID).

http://ctt-andy.blogspot.com/2008/10/windows-home-server-stop-error-7b.html

Also you can just put your SATA into IDE emulation mode and skip the whole thing. You lose a slight amount of performance though.
 
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Hey Thanks for the info MaxBurn...I was not aware of the F6 not working right on WHS.

That explains issues I had using the ICH9R. I do use IDE emulation and it performs just fine btw.
 
I never slipstreamed drivers for my WHS, used a floppy every time...just opened the case and had it dangling out for install, then removed it.
 
notposting said:
I never slipstreamed drivers for my WHS, used a floppy every time...just opened the case and had it dangling out for install, then removed it.
Click to expand...

This is what I've done for XP installs and such... the problem is I think I have lost/broken/killed all my floppy drives 🙁
 
MaxBurn said:
You can't use F6 drivers in WHS, you must slipstream them. I know it presents the F6 option but it just doesn't work due to the way they customize server 2003 to make it into WHS, stop error 7B every time when I tried it.
Click to expand...
I've used F6 to load disk controller drivers in WHS. You actually have to load the drivers twice: Once in the "DOS-mode" install portion, and once in the "Windows-mode" install portion. If you don't do both, the WHS install won't work.
 
I never messed with slipstreaming or floppies when installing WHS on an NF4 board. It worked just fine out of the box.
 
RebateMonger said:
I've used F6 to load disk controller drivers in WHS. You actually have to load the drivers twice: Once in the "DOS-mode" install portion, and once in the "Windows-mode" install portion. If you don't do both, the WHS install won't work.
Click to expand...

I am a little hazy on the steps I went through where it would fail but I don't remember even getting to the windows mode install portion step where you can load drivers. I assume you are refering to step 2 on the link page below? I think my machine blue-screened before it got to that step.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2236189,00.asp
 
Tangent: So I figured I'd go to the oracle and ask Google what the world has to say about "WHS nforce4"

This thread is already #4 on the list. Jeebus Google. Slow down!
 
The only driver I needed to install was the chipset driver or whatnot. Grab the xp Nforce4 drivers and you're good to go. I did this after install. No biggie. NVIDIA has it in its driver archive area, I believe. It has been a while. That NF4 board is now a basic workstation for me as I've switched to a low power atom setup for WHS.
 
MaxBurn said:
I am a little hazy on the steps I went through where it would fail but I don't remember even getting to the windows mode install portion step where you can load drivers.
Click to expand...
It's been a while since my last WHS install. There's a description of the process and the "F6" part in this article:
http://www.livens.org/2010/05/21/windows-home-server-review-part-1-installation/

WHS installation involves both a Vista-based interface AND an XP-based interface. The XP (Server 2003, actually) part comes SECOND. I'd forgotten this.

I had to go through the two-time disk controller install when I installed WHS on an old PC using a VIA-chipset-based PCI SATA controller card and a Hitachi 1 TB disk. In my first attempt, I assumed that the first time I supplied the disk controller drivers would be enough, and the install couldn't complete. The second time, I provided a floppy disk drive and did the F6 thing and all was well. The first set of drivers would be Vista/Win7 drivers so the Vista-based installer can see the disk controller. The second set of drivers would be XP/2003 drivers so that Windows Server 2003 can see the disk controller.
 
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Isn't the GUI installer supposed to copy over the drivers for use with the textmode Win2K3 installer? You aren't supposed to need to load drivers twice.
 
My advice is all based on my experience with the intel chipset on home server. It wouldn't surprise me if nvidia makes you jump through a whole different set of hoops to get their driver loaded.
 
I have a DFI Lanparty NF4 board running WHS. No drivers needed for the nVidia SATA connections, but I did need them for the onboard Silicon Image SATA controller.
 
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