Wizard of Wiring

I think the d1 is right in the file and I typo'd in my post. The original driver disk places the fasttrak.sys file in the \WinXP subfolder When I modified txtsetup.oem I axed all of the driver folders and put fasttrak.sys in the root folder. Another reason why I think this is a path problem that I failed to mention in my original post but is that I have already tried to format my c:\ partition with fat which I could convert to ntfs after install and I still get a copy error, so I do not believe it is a file system problem. Windows setup loads support for fat and ntfs anyway so I wouldn't think this to be an issue but I tried a fat partition nonetheless. Not to mention this 'F6' process works flawlessly for a Windows 2000 SBS install using the exact same floppy driver image. In Windows 2000 SBS I never received an error and just to make sure my memory is not failing me I put my Windows 2000 cd in and everything works fine no install problems at all. 2000 reads the floppy, copies the driver, and boots using the same partition and file system. What is so different about this 2003 sp2 installer? I am not against an unattended install however I only install a server OS once every few years as I only maintain two servers (a Microsoft box and a Vmware box on Debian). I typically just put the cd in and go through the setup when it comes to Microsoft. There do seem to be some advantages of an unattended installation with regards to install customization but there is also a learning curve price that for me is unjustified if there is a simple solution to making this attended install work. After all I do have a floppy drive in the box. I only mention the learning curve because I have read a lot of topics about unattended raid driver installation the past couple days and I almost feel like I would be opening another can of worms going that route. If a simple solution does not present itself I will install the OS on an ide drive and image it over to the raid array.

I noticed some typo's in my post with regards to my cut, pasting and modifying txtsetup.oem should be: [Disks] d1 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \ #originally typed 'd' [Defaults] scsi = Fasttrak100_xp [scsi] Fasttrak100_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak100 Lite Controller", fasttrak [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp] driver = d1, fasttrak.sys, fasttrak # originally typed d4 inf = d1, fasttrak.inf # originally typed d4

I am surprised I haven't noticed this forum before. But then again I am kind of a lone wolf garage developer. I made my first post here due and by the time I could hit the page reload button there were five views. Impressed doesn't quite cover it So I was looking around the forum and decided this would be a good place to get some feedback on this topic. Over a decade ago I can remember trying to figure out how to use ipmasquerade and the like to overcome early limitations in NAT to get that quake, doom, or duke nukem server working with my lan and isdn simultaneously. I can remember spending hours upon hours playing around with flash when it first came out to have the coolest clan web site. Everything tech in my life was always game driven in my twenties. Now that I am approaching middle age I find that I wish I spent a little more time on affiliate marketing, finding a way to contribute to an open source project, or publishing some help related material. I haven't really fired a game up in a couple years and simply spend my spare time experimenting with development and servers in hopes I will be able to monetize my knowledge and vast experience in the small business sector at some point. I have accumulated a wealth of knowledge and experience in development, servers, etc but it doesn't seem to be good enough for most employers. Nowadays they seem to be interested in younger candidates who have taken some sort of curriculum. I come up short when it comes to experience in the enterprise or a development environment because all of my experience is self induced. Ten years ago I probably would have had a very easy time breaking into an IT career before the certs, etc. I was just curious on any suggestions some of you might have on how to turn my passions into a career because some of you were probably like me fifteen years ago but managed to get an administrator or developer job somewhere and have grown into IT managers and engineers.

Warning - This is a lengthy post with detailed description of problem and attempted solutions I have an Asus A7V133 Mainboard which features an integrated Fasttrak Lite raid controller. Two hard drives are configured as primary master devices on the primary and secondary promise ide channels. These two drives form a raid 0 array. I have a hard drive configured as a master on the standard ide controller and a cd-rom on the secondary ide controller. During installation I disconnect the hard drive on the standard ide controller so the raid 0 array primary partition will be recognized as c:. When I am done with initial installation I will reconnect the standard ide drive for maintenance backups. I have used this board with Windows NT & Windows Server 2000. During both OS installations I press 'F6' to load the raid drivers and have never had a problem until recently trying to install Server 2003. Here is what happens: cd is Microsoft Server 2003 SP2 If I boot into setup without pressing 'F6' my hard drives and raid array are not recognized and installation fails When I press 'F6' I am prompted to select the driver and my hard drives and raid array are recognized. I can then partition and format the drives without problem. When setup is finished partitioning and formatting it starts to copy the initial setup files. Before it starts copying files from the cd I get this error: "Setup cannot copy fasttrak.sys" - Press F3 to quit or ESC to continue or Enter to retry Now this is where it starts to get interesting because I have tried several things over the past two days. After researching the internet there seems to be a great deal of discussions about this problem when attempting an unattended slipstream installation. Although I am not doing an unattended installation I HAVE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT I AM GETTING THIS ERROR MESSAGE BECAUSE WINDOWS SERVER 2003 CANNOT COPY FASTTRAK.SYS BECAUSE OF A PATH PROBLEM. It makes sense because if I know the installer is accessing the floppy drive because I can see the light come on. I know the floppy and the driver files themselves are good because the installer initially loads them which allows me to partition and format my raid 0 array(and yes I have remade the driver disk over a dozen times on different floppies). When I press 'F6', setup is able to parse TXTSETUP.OEM, read the floppy, and load the correct driver. When the installer finishes formatting and partitioning why does it look for fasttrak.sys in a different directory than a:\WinXP? The real question here is WHERE is the installer looking for fasttrak.sys? If I knew that I could simply put fasttrak.sys in the right path location and viola. Here is the original TXTSETUP.OEM ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Disks] d1 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \ d2 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \nt4 d3 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \Win2000 d4 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \WinXP [Defaults] scsi = Fasttrak100_xp [scsi] FastTrak100_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak100 Lite Controller", FastTrak FastTrak100_nt5 = "Win2000 Promise FastTrak100 Lite Controller", FastTrak FastTrak100_nt4 = "WinNT Promise FastTrak100 Lite Controller", FastTrak [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp] driver = d4, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak inf = d4, Fasttrak.inf [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp] id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_80421043","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0011458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0021458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0031458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0041458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0051458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0061458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0071458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0081458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0091458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00A1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00B1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00C1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00D1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00E1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00F1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_0065A0A0","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_30011695","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_321D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_330D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_337D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_366D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_369D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_380D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_394D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_90011509","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_070110FD","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_086616F3","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_4D33105A","Fasttrak"; [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_nt5] driver = d3, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak inf = d3, Fasttrak.inf [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_nt5] id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_80421043","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0011458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0021458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0031458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0041458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0051458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0061458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0071458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0081458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0091458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00A1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00B1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00C1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00D1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00E1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00F1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_0065A0A0","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_30011695","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_321D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_330D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_337D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_366D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_369D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_380D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_394D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_90011509","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_070110FD","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_086616F3","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_4D33105A","Fasttrak"; [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_nt4] driver = d2, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak inf = d2, Fasttrak.inf [Config.Fasttrak] value = "", Tag, REG_DWORD, 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is the TXTSETUP.OEM currently with FASTTRAK, FASTTRAK.INI, FASTTRAK.SYS, & FASTTRAK.CAT ALL LOCATED IN A:\ As you can see I changed everything to lowercase and all of my files are in the root directory. I deleted everything else off of the dirver disk but txtsetup.oem, fasttrak(I guess this is the tag file), fasttrak.sys, fasttrak.ini, & fasttrak.cat. I renamed all my files to lowercase. I am reaching here but I am trying everything I can think of. With this txtsetup oem I am not promted to choose other drivers and it initially loads driver so I can partition and format drives but still fails at: setup cannot copy fasttrak.sys ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Disks] d = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \ [Defaults] scsi = Fasttrak100_xp [scsi] Fasttrak100_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak100 Lite Controller", fasttrak [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp] driver = d4, fasttrak.sys, fasttrak inf = d4, fasttrak.inf [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp] id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_80421043","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0011458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0021458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0031458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0041458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0051458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0061458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0071458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0081458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0091458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00A1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00B1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00C1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00D1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00E1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00F1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_0065A0A0","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_30011695","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_321D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_330D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_337D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_366D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_369D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_380D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_394D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_90011509","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_070110FD","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_086616F3","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_4D33105A","Fasttrak"; [Config.fasttrak] value = "", Tag, REG_DWORD, 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another Idea I had was that the tag file is being confused as a directory. I am not sure if this is even relavent or if I changed the txtsetup.oem file correctly but here was my attempt. I also renamed fasttrak to fasttrak.tag ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Disks] d = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak.tag, \ [Defaults] scsi = Fasttrak100_xp [scsi] Fasttrak100_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak100 Lite Controller", fasttrak [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp] driver = d4, fasttrak.sys, fasttrak inf = d4, fasttrak.inf [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp] id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_80421043","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0011458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0021458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0031458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0041458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0051458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0061458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0071458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0081458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0091458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00A1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00B1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00C1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00D1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00E1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00F1458","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_0065A0A0","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_30011695","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_321D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_330D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_337D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_366D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_369D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_380D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_394D1462","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_90011509","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_070110FD","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_086616F3","Fasttrak"; id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_4D33105A","Fasttrak"; [Config.fasttrak] value = "", Tag, REG_DWORD, 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In summary I believe the solution to this problem is very simple and is a path problem. I am finding that simple solution to be very elusive and I have decided to reach out. Of interesting note I recently ordered a copy of Server 2008 beta and for the heck of it tried to install it on this box and couldn't even get to point where I could see the raid array to format and partition. I realize this is old asus board, athlon 1600, and a gig and a half of ram are old hardware, but for a small server it is still good hardware.