Thursday, March 20, 2008

Dell SAS 6/iR Integrated = LSI SAS 1068 Adapter

So I've spent the last 6 hours of my day trying to install Windows XP Pro on a Dell PowerEdge 1950 server but failing due to the internal Dell SAS 6/iR Integrated controller not be recognized. Dell doesn't support running Windows XP Pro on the PE 1950, however they have a set of Windows XP drivers for this controller under their Dell Precision Workstation T line. I tried the Windows Server 2003 driver, the Windows XP driver (for the same controller but listed under the Precision line) and the Windows 2000 driver, but none worked. After a little searching, in the Dell forums of all places, I found a reference to this Dell SAS card being manufactured by LSI. A little more searching turned up a model number of LSISAS1068, which does have a Windows XP driver (link). I loaded this onto a USB floppy drive and was able to get past the Windows XP text mode setup as it was now able to find the SATA drive. So far, so good!

18 comments:

Danny said...

I tried this but got "the file lsi_sas.sys" is corrupted" as an error. Any idea why? I've been trying to load Windows XP onto my PowerEdge 1950 as well with no luck.

Troy said...

Perhaps a corrupted download or extraction? Are all of the files in the root of the floppy disk drive? Do you see that file listed there?

Danny said...

Actually I've been using nLite to create a bootable XP installation with the drivers already imbedded into it since I do not have a USB floppy drive. However, the lsi_sas.sys file is listed in there and I've burned several copies of the image with no success. Always "the file lsi_sas.sys is corrupted."

Troy said...

I've used nLite a few times, but never embedded drivers using it. I haven't tried install the system using that method, although it would be nice for my ESX guest systems.

Not sure why it's happening, but I know it worked for me with the USB floppy drive (although it took me a little while to find a floppy drive and disk).

Danny said...

Well thanks anyways Troy. Do you think you could link me up to "the set of Windows XP drivers for this controller under their Dell Precision Workstation T line" that you mentioned? I'm going to go ahead and try those instead of the LSI SAS and see if that works. I would greatly appreciate it man. Thanks again.

Troy said...

You can try either:
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/downloads/en/downloads_splash?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~mode=popup&file=223487

or
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/downloads/en/downloads_splash?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~mode=popup&file=223433

but as I mentioned, these didn't work for me, however, YMMV.

babes said...

LIFE SAVER!!!!!

Your detective work saved me a lot of time. I went out and bought a USB floppy drive (easier to find than I had thought) plugged it in, hit F6 when prompted and within 40 mins had XP running perfectly.

Thank you very much.

Unknown said...

Troy, Thanx for the detective work. I am hoping this will work with the SAS 5/iR also. I am trying to install WinXP on the Poweredge 860. I downloaded the drivers form Dell website for the SAS 5/IR adapter and it did not work either. Win Setup gave the error can not locate txtsetup.oem. The files you provided have that file. Hope it works
DzJ, Rookie

Anonymous said...

Danny, your problem is probably that you have a different SAS controller to the one in Troy's system. I have a PowerEdge 1950 as well, but the SAS driver is an LSI 1068E. You can find (or guess) your model by watching the BIOS screen as the system boots. Then it's just a matter of searching for it on the LSI site that Troy provided the link for.

Troy, you rock!

Anonymous said...

Worked perfectly on a Dell Precision T7400 with the same SAS controller card.

Thank you very much Troy!

Anonymous said...

I ran into this exact same issue and none of the above issues worked for me as I needed XP64bit drivers and for whatever reason the LSI drivers didn't work. BUT a resolution was found after digging and well a unwanted pride killing Dell phone call was made.

The dell dude grabbed a link from one of the high-end workstations T7400 i believe but here is the link to the driver that worked for me

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R165682&SystemID=PREC_T7400&servicetag=&os=WXPX&osl=en&deviceid=13854&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=1&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=3&libid=46&fileid=223491

Anonymous said...

just added driver with nLite and it worked. Thanks

Anonymous said...

Thanks Troy, saved me a lot of grief.

Anonymous said...

Thank You very much!!!!!!!!!!

Ben said...

Thank You!!

Peter said...

Close but no cigar.

I did what you did with the LSI 1068E drivers from LSI. The SAS attached drive gets recognized and I go past the format but then when it starts to copy files, it asks for the SAS PCI MPT Miniport driver disk again. As I press Enter this menu does not dissapear. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Troy said...

A bad floppy or the file's integrity is compromised? Have you tried to re-download, re-extract onto a different floppy?

See the comments above as well for other possible solutions.

Unknown said...

Crazy stuff at Dell, tried now about 6 hours... can´t see the drives.

Tried all drivers (xp/64/2003/lsi/dell), diffrent floppy disk, but no luck :(

I started to hate my job.