Itanium Server Does not Recognize USB Floppy Drive During Windows Setu

[mbrat]

I am trying to install Windows Server 2003 IA64 on an HP zx6000 Itanium2 (research box donated by HP--not desktop model) server with all three drives (RAID5) on a LSI MegaRaid 320-2x SCSI controller. I instert the Windows CD and plug in a USB floppy drive (there is not internal floppy) I boot the system, start windows setup, and select that I want to load additional drivers. When setup gets to the point of actually loading the drivers, it continually says to insert the driver floppy into drive A:.

In EFI, I can list the contents of the floppy and everything seems to work fine. In windows setup though, the floppy drive gives no inication that it is plugged in (no lights or other action).

At this point, I see my options as either:

-fixing the issue with the floppy drive,

-inserting new drivers into a custom windows CD, or

-attempt a network installation.

I worked yesterday on attempting to make a new windows CD that included the new drivers for the SCSI card, but was unable to boot to it. I think this is related to the unique boot requirements of an IA64 boot cd (I get the impression that I would need to make an El Torito boot disk, but am not sure how to incorporate the Itanium boot information into that boot disk).

We have an Argon PXE server in place, but I have not had any luck getting the Itanium box to boot to it.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[cluberti]

HP has utilities to help with Windows setup, and since that's a common IA64 controller, they likely have a utility you can use to setup Windows more easily from the hologram media.