Hi,
I have a new customer with a backup server, never configured by previous tech whose hard drive was throwing tons of errors (not resolvable). I ordered a new 1TB 7.2k drive (Constellation ES 3) and was going to build the server from scratch (since the old drive was 500GB) and cannot get Win 2012 to install.
The server is PowerEdge R210 II, 1 processor, don't have records of purchase so don't know what kind of controller although I think when I booted it a couple months ago, it did not seem as though it supported *any* kind of raid (possible?). All I know is it is sata.
Here is what I did (sorry if below not exactly correct - fairly new to Dell and these were the notes I took onsite):
1) loaded from "Open Manage Systems Management Tools" ver 7.4
(or did I F10 into the Bios and chose OS Deploy...sheesh...now I don't remember)
2) Chose OS deploy and then it eventually asks for the Win disk
3) it starts to load from Windows Server 2012, chose language, go to Install menu
4) when asked where to install left at default "Drive 0 unallocated space"
5) it starts to chug away and then I get the error:
"Windows cannot format a partitiion on Drive 0. The error occurred while preparing the partition for installation".
It seems that somehow even though the bios recognizes the drive that perhaps there is no driver on the Win 2012 original CD to use this drive.
So is there a way to either get an updated CD with the drivers (unfortunately, support has run out - March 2014 seems to be purchase date). Or if this server somehow has raid 1, maybe I just have to put back in the old drive, allow it to build and then take it out and just run on the new drive (not sure if this is wise as I am *assuming* that the errors being thrown are bad sectors on the drive and not the actual software).
Suggestions? Thanks from a Dell newbie.