Installing Windows on a RAID system without a floppy drive

Question

What is the best way to install Windows on a system without a Floppy drive, when RAID drivers are required for the installation?

I'm specifically trying to get Windows 2003r2 64bit onto a rack-mount server that can't have a floppy drive installed.

Do I need to go through slipstreaming an install disk (and if so, can that be done on a 32bit system - my first quick attempt has produced a disk that won't boot) or is there an easier way such as tricking windows into using a USB key of something similar?

Answer 1

You can integrate the drive into the windows disk, the easiest way is with nLite.
You should be able to do this from a 32-bit windows, but if you ask on the nLite forum they will tell you and even point you to more info.

Answer 2

It'd probably require buying hardware, but an external USB floppy drive might do the trick.

Answer 3

I eventually managed to track down a USB floppy drive to use. All my attempts using nlite failed (when it loaded the driver it complained that the driver was not for that version of windows and refused to go any further) but the exact same driver worked fine from a USB floppy.

Answer 4

I've done this for Windows XP, not Windows 2003, but it should be a similar process.

To slipstream a 64-bit program on a 32-bit os you can use nlite, but it needs the .net framework to support it and both the 64-bit iso and the 32-bit version of the iso, because you're going to swap the 64-bit version of a certain file with the 32-bit version. (If you don't have the iso image, you can copy the cd to a folder on your hard drive and use that with nlite.) In your case, you need a copy of the 32-bit version of the Windows 2003 iso (or copy of that cd's files). If you don't have the 32-bit version you can download a trial version of 32-bit Windows 2003 r2 sp2 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1B9FE9E4-1D57-4698-A5CF-DB271ED6D90A&displaylang=en

Or if you're a college student or high school student, you can get a free copy from Microsoft's DreamSpark program.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/feb08/02-18GSDPR.mspx

The step by step instructions (and screenshots!) to do the slipstreaming are on this web page (including the links for nlite and .net framework):

http://www.msfn.org/articles.php?action=show&showarticle=49

Instead of slipstreaming the Windows service pack, you're slipstreaming your raid drivers.

Here's the problem with the 64-bit program: nlite can't integrate update.exe because it's compiled for 64-bits and nlite is operating on a 32-bit system. (Note: update.exe is the file for Windows XP, so the name might differ for Windows 2003.) The solution is to swap the 64-bit update.exe in your source folder with the 32-bit update.exe (from your download listed above) and let nlite integrate the 32-bit files when it slipstreams. nlite will leave the 64-bit files alone and just copy them to the destination folder once it integrates the 32-bit files.

When that's done, use your cd burning software to copy the iso to a cd. Install Windows and you won't need to worry about the situation with the F6 function and floppy drive for the raid drivers, because the cd already has the drivers on it.