Dell WS370 and SATA RAID

[Halal-Al]

Just a quick hint

I've been having some problems with a Dell Precision Workstation with Intel® Application Accelerator RAID Edition. It turns out that I can get the drivers I downloaded from Dell to work ONLY if I set the Sata Operations in BIOS to RAID ON. If I choose any of the RAID Autodetect options I get errors. Even when using F6 during setup.

Otherwise it's setup as described here:

Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition

[Astalavista]

it would be helpful if we knew if your using xp home or pro

do u hv sp2 do u hv the latest hotfixes?

are u using drivers pack by bst?

dont know what i am talking about?

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=37499

[Halal-Al]

That will be XP Pro, SP1, latest hotfixes and the driver pack are directly as downloaded from Dell. Plus the latest BIOS version from Dell (A03)

[Astalavista]

let me ask u hv u ever made a u.a. cd?

[Halal-Al]

Well, here at LEGO Company, we don't use unattend WinXP CDs, we have all our WinXP setup files on network shares and we connect to the share with unattended WinPE CD, RIS or even network enabled DOS boot disk! So yes, unattended installation is known to us.

[Bâshrat the Sneaky]

Well, here at LEGO Company, we don't use unattend WinXP CDs, we have all our WinXP setup files on network shares and we connect to the share with unattended WinPE CD, RIS or even network enabled DOS boot disk! So yes, unattended installation is known to us.

Cool

Someone who works for LEGO

I've been playing for years with those toys! (I once 'invented' a fan with gear using LEGO Technic, proud I was )

Back ontopic: what method did you use? The txtsetup.oem method?

[Halal-Al]

HeY

A cool 'fan', nice

Yes LEGO is a cool toy, but u should buy some more, we're not doing to well.

Anyway, we are using the txtsetup.oem method as described on the Intel page(see my first post). It's working fine when the BIOS is set to 'RAID ON' and I had a long chat with a DELL support guy who ended up asking ME for the unattend.txt file that worked...

It follows the Intel outline, but u can get it here

[Unattended]
    UnattendedMode=FullUnattended
    OEMSkipEULA=YES
    OEMPreInstall=YES
    OEMPnPDriversPath=\PnPDrvrs\System;\PnPDrvrs\Monitors;\PnPDrvrs;\PnPDrvrs\ialmnt5;\PnPDrvrs\DivaPro;\PnPDrvrs\Video
    WaitForReboot=No
    TargetPath=WINNT
    OverWriteOemFilesOnUpgrade=no
    DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore

[GUIUnattended]
    AdminPassword="*"
    EncryptedAdminPassword=NO
    OEMSkipRegional=1
    OEMSkipWelcome=1
    TimeZone=105
    ProfilesDir="%SystemRoot%\Profiles"

[Userdata]
    ProductID=11111-11111-11111-11111
    Fullname="."
    OrgName="LEGO Company"
    ComputerName=DKL366

[Display]
    BitsPerPel=16
    Xresolution=1024
    YResolution=768
    VRefresh=70

[RegionalSettings]
    LanguageGroup=1,2,7,8
    SystemLocale=00000409
    UserLocale=00000406
    InputLocale=0409:00000409, 0406:00000406, 0411:e0010411, 0412:E0010412, 0407:00000407

[Identification]
    JoinDomain=domain.lego.com
    DomainAdmin=<username>
    DomainAdminPassword=<passWord>
    MachineObjectOU="ou = ou_DESKTOP2003,ou = ou_DEV,ou = ou_legopc,dc = domain,dc = lego,dc = com"

[NetWorking]
    InstallDefaultComponents=YES

[Components]
    msmq_Core=on
    zonegames=Off
    msnexplr=Off

[MassStorageDrivers]
"Intel(R) 82801FR SATA RAID Controller (Desktop ICH6R)" = "OEM"

[OEMBootFiles]
iaStor.inf
iaStor.sys
iaStor.cat
iaAHCI.inf
iaAHCI.cat
Txtsetup.oem

It's the last two sections that's interesting. We then added the driver files to the $OEM$\TEXTMODE folder.

On the WinPE side I modified the WinPEOEM.sif to include these lines:

[OemDriverParams]
OemDriverRoot=""
OemDriverDirs=IAStor

And then added a folder in System32 called IAStor and added all the files from the driver pack.

That's it. It works.

[Bâshrat the Sneaky]

Anyway, we are using the txtsetup.oem method as described on the Intel page(see my first post). It's working fine when the BIOS is set to 'RAID ON' and I had a long chat with a DELL support guy who ended up asking ME for the unattend.txt file that worked...

LOL nice

So you got it working, but what was wrong before?

[Halal-Al]

I ain't got a clue. Why Dell's own driver pack doesn't work with Dell's WS370 when their BIOS is set to 'RAID Autodetect'? Their problem. I just wanted to share my experience, so some other poor devil didn't have to waste time on it. I'll leave that up to the Dell support guys and be happy it works for me. And hopefully for somebody else as well. B)