Solved Help installing Win7 on Dell T5400 server with Vista drivers

[paulkruger]

I bouoght a dual quad Xeon workstation on eBay that I want to use for 3d graphics rendering. Price was right but if came with no OS. It has a Vista key label but I want to install Windows 7 Pro 64 on this machine.

I found a number of forums where people talk about successfully using W7 and on the Dell site it says the machine is compatible with basic W7 functions so it should work. Most of what they say involves issues with RAID drivers. I really have no need for RAID and have just one drive in the box. (It is currently running Linux just fine)

Problem is cannot get it to install because it can not find "suitable drivers". I have all the drivers available from Dell for Vista. There are no Win7 drivers for this machine so have to use Vista 64 drivers.

How can I get past that driver barrier and install Windows 7 and install the Vista drivers? Is there a way I can load it using another machine as a source? I have the same OS on a couple other machines although the other is an i7 quad. The video cards are the exact same model.

What if I got a Vista install disk and use the key on the box then upgrade to 7?

Shame to have a really fast linux door stop! :scratch:

Dell T5400 / Dual Quad Xeon / 32 GB RAM / Nvidea 730 GPU

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[samuria]

Go onto dell site and see what drivers are available for it if there are win7 drivers you can just install 7 is there a tag number on it if so enter that to get all drivers

 

[paulkruger]

It is always better to read the post prior to offering a reply. Original post clearly stated I did look for drivers and there are no Win7 available.

 

[samuria]

Funny that I found most of the win7 drivers

 

[paulkruger]

URL

Can you post a URL for those? I used Dell support site and the product ID and found nothing but Vista Drivers.

Product: 2H4DNG1

I would love to be wrong !!

 

[Megahertz07]

First of all, you have to set BIOS properly.
Set SATA=AHCI
Disable RAID controller (LSI 1068e SAS/SATA RAID controller).
Is your HDD connected to MB SATA?
Is your Win 7 64 and Pro?
I also found Vista drivers only - Support for Precision T5400 | Dell US
Most Vista drivers will work for Win 7.
When you boot from the Win 7 installation disk, what exactly issue you get?

 

[paulkruger]

First of all, you have to set BIOS properly.
Set SATA=AHCI
Disable RAID controller (LSI 1068e SAS/SATA RAID controller).
Is your HDD connected to MB SATA?
Is your Win 7 64 and Pro?
I also found Vista drivers only - Support for Precision T5400 | Dell US
Most Vista drivers will work for Win 7.
When you boot from the Win 7 installation disk, what exactly issue you get?

The win7 64/Pro install disk boots fine but halts with error no suitable drivers. I think I got bios set right because I was able to install linux and that runs fine so disks video etc. seem to work fine. That pretty much satisfies my hardware function. Assume if bios did not like drive I could not install Linux either. At least Linux knows what to do about drivers unlike Windows.

I have the original COA/key on the box and an iso for Vista Business 64 so may try to install that instead. Perhaps I can then upgrade to Win7 assuming I even need do that for my purposes.

 

[Megahertz07]

Paul, Linux an Win are completely different OS. Linux has drivers Win 7 doesn't.
I think you will have the same problem with Vista.
You didn't answer if your HDD connected to MB SATA. If it's connected to the LSI 1068e SAS/SATA RAID controller it explains the missing driver during win 7 installation.
I'm quite sure it's a SATA or USB driver that is missing.

 

[paulkruger]

Paul, Linux an Win are completely different OS. Linux has drivers Win 7 doesn't.
I think you will have the same problem with Vista.
You didn't answer if your HDD connected to MB SATA. If it's connected to the LSI 1068e SAS/SATA RAID controller it explains the missing driver during win 7 installation.
I'm quite sure it's a SATA or USB driver that is missing.

I know, but bios does not change between OS so tried linux to see if hardware was actually working as it should. I can't help wonder why Windows cannot install as easily as linux does on almost any hardware.

I followed the SATA cables and they all connect to the MOBO, not to a separate RAID controller card. Also since Linux installed to the drive as expected, I would assume bios is correctly set to use a single SATA drive not in any RAID configuration.

 

[Megahertz07]

Expand the 540_Vista.zip on a usb flash drive.
Put the usb flash drive on a USB2.0 port.
Boot the win 7 Installation disk.
Go to install. When ask for a driver on CD/ DVD browse to USB flash and load all drivers.
Delete all partitions - create new - install on the big NTFS

 

[paulkruger]

Thanks...will give this as shot. May nap first. Got a cold and not much ambition now.

 

[SIW2]

Error Installing Windows 7 on Precision T5400 with RAID 1 Configuration - General Hardware - Desktop - Dell Community

 

[paulkruger]

Error Installing Windows 7 on Precision T5400 with RAID 1 Configuration - General Hardware - Desktop - Dell Community

No RAID used. Single drive only.

 

[paulkruger]

bummer

Drivers appear ok. Most won't install.
Error: Windows cannot install on Disk0 partition 1 (or 2) because hardware may not support booting from this drive.

Don't understand??

Linux booted ok from that same drive and the hardware has not changed?

If I had hair I would tear it out already !

 

[paulkruger]

Wonder if there is a way clone drive from another windows 7 machine and put that in then sort out drivers later?

 

[Megahertz07]

You haven't been polite with Samuria when you wrote "It is always better to read the post prior to offering a reply" and you are doing the same.
Siw gave a link to a Dell site that gave a link to the SATA drivers you need and you didn't even read it.
Add the attached drivers to the usb flash drive and put it on a USB2.0 port

 

[paulkruger]

Thanks for help I'm not trying to be rude.

I did read posts and I also added to the USB drive. I am trying to reply to each as I test stuff but it takes time to follow up on these suggestions because I have to copy files, go to other machine, have reformatted twice etc.

I did point out that I did specify in the original post that I did look on Dell for drivers already so suggesting I do what I had specifically stated that I had already done is redundant.

 

[paulkruger]

I may have to rebuild a new iso to try this. I get error 0x80300001 which Microsoft site says happens on clean install of Win7 when you have to switch drives to install drivers. Since I have the DVD for install and the USB for drivers it appears it confused the install process.

I will create a new iso with those drivers on the same disk and see if that helps.

 

[SIW2]

Here is the readme for the above RST:

View attachment readme.txt

You could try using dism to install them into boot.wim ( image 2) and whatever image you plan to use in the install.wim.

 

[paulkruger]

Read those. Problem is that assumes you already have an os running where you can determine certain info from Device Manager etc. Since I have no OS and am trying to make a workable installation disk I need to know that stuff before I can even start the machine. The read me says the "system must be running one of the following operating systems" and names Win7 but it is not running any os at all which is my catch 22.

Do you know of a bootable utility disk that can scan the box for all the hardware details? I'm just guessing because cannot get any specifics from Dell. The lump them all together and tell you to install a driver utility but you can't install that without the OS already installed.

I'm running in circles here.