Hi,

Microsoft dropped support for the original Perc II which you have installed in your PowerEdge 4200. Unfortunately, there are not any drivers available for Win2003.

FYI, this is the documentation and latest firmware for the Perc II:

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

Perc II - Firmware, v. U84/C81, A02
File Name:  PERCU84.exe

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

Okay, I'm running into the same problem.

I've gone into the Recovery Console and checked the boot.ini, and it shows some wierd disk access information (don't have it handy right now), but I do have an NTbootdd.sys file in root - which means that Windows has copied _some_ driver for the SCSI raid.

When I originally purchased the server, it had Windows 2003 Standard loaded on it. The installation was removed, of course, before I took it home.

Lastly, if Win2003 does not have driver support for the original PERC, then why can I see both my internal array and the array from my SDS that is connected to the external port of the PERC?

Dell does not show any PERC drivers available for 2k either - just a firmware upgrade.

I just finished installing & configuring 2k server without a hitch. The one thing I noticed is that during the initial setup, it showed my PERC on bus3 when installing 2003, and bus0 when installing 2k. Very odd, as the boot.ini makes no mention of (bus), the boot selection shows: signature(3fd93fd8)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS. I wonder if the disk() entry is the same as "bus."

Other than that, the boot.ini is still the same, though the ntbootdd.sys is only 9k now, instead of ~20k. Again, odd.

After I get all the files moved over from my desktop to the SDS, I'm going to try and run the...  upgrade to 2003 from 2k. *shudder*

I wonder what would happen if I made a backup of the ntbootdd.sys file and copied it to root after 2003 is installed (if, of course, it didn't work again).

It's just strange. I added an extra entry to the boot.ini when in the recovery console for 2003 and the boot menu does show up - so I know it's accessing the disk. I can tell you that after spending 2 full 8+ hour days of messing with this system just to get it to boot to cd, it's no wonder everybody takes the easy way out and claims "incompatability." If I can get a Thinkpad P133 laptop w/ 64 megs of ram to load XP Pro (slowly, at best - but it DID boot), I can get this Hulk-style PE4200 to run 2003.

Original poster: If you load 2000 Server, or can get 2003 to load and get into the recovery console, can you verify what your signature() is?

I got it successfully running on my poweredge w/ a perc and 2003. I had some problems too.... What I had to do was at the point where it asks to press F6 for a 3rd party driver I used a 2000 driver that I downloaded from LSI (megaraid.com) for the 428. Slightly newer driver I think then the one Dell has, and it seems to work fine. Only thing is that the array manager won't Identify the card so I just use disk manager until maybe a driver comes out for it.

Is there 2003 support for all versions of the PERC2 cards? (Is PERC II the same as PERC2?)

Is there a hardware compatibility list for Power Edge model servers as well as PERC2, 3 and 4 cards on the Dell site somewhere? I'm looking for a consolidated list of necessary BIOS, Firmware, Drivers, etc for supported devices.   

PERC II is an old AMI, now LSI 2 channel U2W (40 MB/s)

PERC 2 is Adaptec 4 channel LVD (80 MB/s)

athome-GaryS

Download the Dell PERC II Driver for WIN2000. Put it on diskette.

The Dell Driver is

ftp://ftp.dell.com/scsi-raid/W2k268A.exe


Install the U84 Firmware.

ftp://ftp.dell.com/scsi-raid/PERCU84.exe

Boot from the CD for WIN2003 server and when it says press ANY key to boot from CD press F6 a few times.

Then make sure after it starts booting that the Driver for the PERC II is on diskette in the A: drive.

Install the WIN2000 driver and ignore the prompts that say the PERCII has a better driver than the one on the diskette and that its not signed.

Tell it to continue anyway.

It may ask again after it installs if you are sure say yes.

Then once WIN2003 server is installed you can right click on the PERC in the device manager and say update driver.

It will then tell you it found a newer driver for the card
AMI Megaraid Enterprise 1200 (428).

You can then install that driver from the CD.

If you try to skip the part about installing the driver from
diskette it will boot up to a blue screen and say No boot device.

Message Edited by SpeedStep on 04-24-2004 08:23 PM

i have a perc 2/sc on my PE 4300, works fine with the 2000 driver/FW from the dell website

on Win 2003 btw

id you want to hit me up with a email, ill give you the file name of the drivers that worked for me

Bilbusb-@-Bretlevi.com

just remove the - - from address, i dont want spam