Problems booting from EFI

[idata]

Hello, I have a Intel S5000PSL server board. It has a onboard RAID running volume of 3TB. I want to install Windows Enterprise 2008. To get this installation started and from all the doco I have read, I need to start the Windows install via the EFI shell.

The system boots into EFI and it can see the DVD (which is a Windows 2008 x64 Enterprise installation DVD from the Microsoft Heroes Happen function in 2008)

I run the following commands:

cd EFI

cd BOOT

BOOTX64.EFI

after about 20 seconds, I get:

BOOTX64.EFI is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

A directory listing shows the bootx64.efi file has a size of 345, 008

the ver command returns the following:

EFI Spec... :1.10

EFI Vendor :INTEL

EFI Revision: 8192.1

BIOS is at 96

BMC is at 64

FRUSDR is at 46

Why won't this system read the bootx64.efi file? Am I doing something fundementally wrong?

[idata]

Hi there,

Forget about booting on EFI and install the OS thru that - even i thought that this was possible, but i think that this is meant for Itanium based system. Anyway, the partition of the drive needs to GPT format to be able to install the OS, but unfortunately Windows is not installable on GPT format.

I supposed that your aim is to install the Windows Enterprise 64 bits.

Here are the instructions to follow:

=========================

- Create two raid array - one less than 2TB to be able to install the OS, and second one for your data for example

Note: Due to MBR limitation, you will need to install on a partition less than 2TB. GPT does not have this limitation.

- Once you have created the RAID volume, initialize the logical drives and Save & Exit.

- Insert the OS CD

- Go into the BIOS

- Boot Manager >> Boot onto the Optical Drive.

- Press a key to continue the OS installation.

- If needed load the F6 driver for the Embedded RAID Driver (Downloadable from the Board Website)

- Install all the other drivers and Raid Web Console after OS Installation.

Let me know if you have any problem, i have the same board

All the best,

Regards,

Aryan

[idata]

Thank for your replies.

I certainaly know about the 2TB limitation. I't been awhile since I have played around with the RAID system on this server. It could be that we had difficulty creating the raid volumes with the Intel on board RAID. I'll have another look at post back.

[idata]

The problem is in creating the RAID array. We need a RAID 10 array. The RAID will not let you configure a volume of a certain size. It only accpets the full size. During the creation of the array, when we cursor down to the size after select RAID 10, it will not let you change the value.

If we could do this then I think we'd be ok. But we seem to be stuck with the full size. How do you configure the RAID to be in two volumes?

[idata]

Hi there,

As far as I know, you don't need to boot to EFI to install windows. EFI boot is mostly used to perform some firmware updates on the system.

First your installation DVD shoud be a bootable disk. Put the dvd in the dvd rom, go to BIOS, boot manager and select your dvd drive from the list and it will boot automatically through the installation disk and the windows setup will start. This is the normal procedure, it is quite simple.

However, it should be noted that you may have some problem to find the raid volume in the installation as it may not be bootable. The reason is that currently most operating system cannot be installed on a volume which is 2TB or more. You can use 2TB or more as data volume, but the os has to be installed on another volume which has to be less that 2TB.

Hope this information will be useful to you.

Cheers.

[idata]

I read some doco on the RAID array. A RAID 10 array cannot be split into multiple volumes on this board. Well that really stops everything since booting the windows startup from EFI does not work.

The solution appears to be to add more hardware. In this instance we will attempt to add another RAID 1 card and a couple of drives to run the OS.

sigh....