DELL PE 2950 Win2k to Win2k3 upgrade problem

[pthmpson]

Hi

I'm having a frustrating problem upgrading a Windows 2000 Dell PowerEdge 2950 to Server 2003.

Everything is working fine until it starts installing devices (Setup estimates about 34 minutes remaining).

At this stage my keyboard and mouse (both USB) stop working. They had been working fine up to this point. There are no PS2 controllers on the PE 2950.

The problem with this is that as soon as they stop working Windows tries to install the driver for the PERC 5i controller and ask me to type in the location of the install files.

I tried to be clever and booted with Knoppix to copy the driver installation files into the $WIN_NT$.~LS folder. This indeed solved the problem as after a reboot the Windows Setup program resumed and found the correct drivers. However it now pops up a message complaining that the drivers have not been signed by Microsoft - Click Yes to continue!!!!

My mouse and keyboard still aren't working so I'm stuck.

I read an Intel article describing this situation and advising to check that "Enable legacy USB Keyboard and Mouse" is enabled in the BIOS. There is no such option in the 2950 BIOS!

I went to the Dell download site and found the latest BIOS update. It wants to install itself on a floppy disk but I've no floppy disk drive on my laptop and there's no floppy drive on the 2950 server either.

I've tried booting to safe mode and the system recovery console (the server is a domain controller!) but they both just attempt to resume Server 2003 setup.

I had taken a LiveState snapshot of the server in case anything went wrong. I attempted to boot with the LiveState client CD but it doesn't like the Broadcom NetXtreme NICs in the 2950. Now I'm really in trouble.

So my questions are as follows:

1) How do I get the server to stop attempting to resume setup and just boot back up as Win2k?

2) How do I get setup to see my USB keyboard and mouse

3) How do I tell setup to install unsigned drivers without prompting me

An answer to any of the above questions will get me out of a big hole - thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Phil

[pthmpson]

Problem Solved.

I got a USB floppy drive and used that to upgrade the server BIOS to v2.1.1 from v1.0.2

When I rebooted the mouse and keyboard stayed working just long enough for me to click ok on the PERC 5i drivers.

Then they stopped working and I was asked for the location of the Broadcom NIC drivers! Irritating, but all I had to do was boot up with Knoppix and copy the Broadcom drivers to the c:\drivers\R126227 folder. Then when I rebooted, setup resumed and once I clicked ok on the PERC drivers the setup program continued right through.

Hope this helps someone else...