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Integrating Adaptec SATA RAID dirvers into Windows XP\2003 Server CD

// August 6th, 2009 // Uncategorized

It’s somehow much more fulfilling to achieve something in a field that isn’t of your primary expertise. So, after a slightly prolonged battle with a diskette-less but SATA RAID ridden server that needed to have Windows XP reinstalled on it… I proclaimed victory!

The 2U rack-mounted beast branded Supermicro had an Adaptec SATA RAID controller for all the hard drives. It’s diskette drive has failed miserably, so, during Windows’ setup it was not possible to provide the necessary drivers for that RAID controller. External USB diskette drive wasn’t correctly recognized by the setup either. Left only with the options of either a network installation or building a custom XP setup CD with the drivers on it, I chose latter (since network install would include building a network share with those same driver files in that same manner as on the CD).

After some googling, downloading the RAID drivers from Adaptec’s site and reading some Microsoft and other material on the matter, this was how all that worked out…

The files from XP CD dir “i386” should be copied to some location, let’s say - C:\Temp\XPSP3\i386\

There, under the i386 directory you will need to create sub-directories in such manner:

“$oem$\$1\Drivers\RAID”

(The full path would then look like this: “C:\Temp\xpsp3\I386\$oem$\$1\Drivers\RAID“)

In that Drivers directory you may add other directories for drivers you wish to include during the setup, but I won’t discuss this here.

The Drivers\RAID directory above is where you should extract the downloaded Adaptec’s drivers files, those must be present in there:

aac.sys
aac.cat
aac.inf
aacmgt.inf
aaccin.dll

Now, edit the file i386\TXTSETUP.SIF (I used Notepad++ since Notepad slowed down considerably while working on it.) This file is responsible for text mode stage of Windows XP\2003 setup. All the additions made to that file are listed below, each under it’s section name. You should locate each section name in the file and add those parameters under it. All the sections already existed in the file, no new sections were added. (Parameters for PCI IDs were taken from a file txtsetup.oem within the original drivers archive.)

[SourceDisksFiles]
aac.sys = 100,,,,,,3_,4,1,,,1,4
aac.cat = 100,,,,,,3_,4,1,,,1,4
aac.inf = 100,,,,,,3_,4,1,,,1,4
aacmgt.inf = 100,,,,,,3_,4,1,,,1,4
aaccin.dll = 100,,,,,,3_,4,1,,,1,4

[HardwareIdsDatabase]
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_02859005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_02869005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_02879005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_028A9005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_028E9005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_028B9005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_028F9005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_02909005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_02929005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_02939005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0286&SUBSYS_028C9005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0286&SUBSYS_028D9005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0285&SUBSYS_3227103C = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0286&SUBSYS_029B9005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0286&SUBSYS_029C9005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0286&SUBSYS_029D9005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0286&SUBSYS_029E9005 = “aac”
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0286&SUBSYS_029F9005 = “aac”

[SCSI.Load]
aac = aac.sys,4

[SCSI]
aac = “Adaptec SATA RAID Controller”

Create a file i386\WINNT.SIF
This file is used for unattended installations, it configures how the GUI portion of Windows setup will be conducted. Below is the content that should be in it. (There is also an example file in the i386 dir called UNATTENDED.TXT)

[Unattended]
Unattendmode=ProvideDefault
OemPreinstall=Yes
OemSkipEula = Yes
TargetPath=\WINDOWS
Filesystem=LeaveAlone
DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore
OemPnPDriversPath = Drivers\RAID;Drivers\NIC

[GuiUnattended]
AutoLogon=Yes
AutoLogonCount=1
EncryptedAdminPassword=NO
OEMSkipRegional=0
OemSkipWelcome=1

[Display]
BitsPerPel=16
XResolution=800
YResolution=600
VRefresh=70

[Networking]
InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

[Identification]
JoinWorkgroup=Workgroup

[UserData]
FullName=”Your User Name”
OrgName=”Your Organization Name”
ComputerName=*

[Data]
UnattendedInstall=”Yes”
AutomaticUpdates=1
MSDosInitiated=”0″
Autopartition=1

Create a file i386\WINNT.BAT
It will be used by the setup to start with the correct WINNT.SIF answers file prepared in the previous step. Here are the exact contents:

@echo off

set AnswerFile=.\WINNT.SIF
set SetupFiles=D:\i386

D:\i386\winnt32 /s:%SetupFiles% /unattend:%AnswerFile%

Now, it’s burning time.
I used ImgBurn for all the burning operations. Selecting “Write files\folders to disk” will get you to “Build” screen, you would have to make sure to select the “Output > Device” in the menu. Browse for the Source dir and add C:\Temp\xpsp3. Immediately after adding, ImgBurn identified that I’m adding a directory with “i386″ subdirectory in it and decided that it’s an operating system disk… It proposed to make some changes to the settings - mostly ISO9660 filesystem related, agree on those. Select “Advanced” tab and “Bootable Disc” sub-tab, check “Make Image Bootable”. Then, below the Options of the bootable image there is a section called “Extract Boot Image”, select your CD\DVD drive from there and insert the original Windows XP\2003 CD, click on the diskette icon… After extracting the boot image, ImgBurn kindly asked if you would like to add that image’s settings into the above options for using in burning the new CD -agreed! Ok, all done. Burn the CD and run it! That worked for me.

Good Luck!