Could Not Find a place for a swap file

[StupidRalph]

I'm working on my uncle's DELL server model DHM. He doesn't have a OS on it anymore. So I'm installing XP via the command line. However, when I try to run Winnt.exe it says "An internal Setup eror has occurred. Could not find a place for swap file" I've fixed this problem before by deleting all the partitions and then formatting HD. I'm having a problem formatting his hard drive. I'm not sure ifs b/c it has a fasttrak Raid Controller on it or what but it won't let me do anything to the HardDrive. Whenever I try to format the HD the formatting doesn't even start. It shows the percent completed as 0, then after about 90 seconds it prints "Not ready" "Format Terminated". I can't even type in the dos "DIR" command on the C drive. It replies "Invalid media type reading drive C" "Abort, Retry, Fail".

I used fdisk and I was trying to delete all the partitions but it won't let me delete one. Its 23996MB EXT DOS. While viewing the information for the partiton it says "The Extended DOS Paritition contains Logical DOS Drives. Do you want to display the logical drive information?" And when i say yes it says "No Logical Drives Defined"

when I try to delete the EXT DOS drive it won't let me delete it. It says "Cannot delete Extended DOS Partition while logical drives exist"

I'm just baffled at what I have to do to get this partition deleted and this HD formatted.

 

[Inaris]

The Extended partition is Dell tools I think. Look in the bios to see if there is something about recovery area...

anyway, When you installed XP, do it from the CD and from boot. When it comes up, it will ask you about 3rd party drivers for raid and such. If this is on a Fast track controller, you will need to supply the drivers for the OS to see it. Also, You may need to deifine the disks operation on the controller at boot.

hope that makes sense. Good luck

 

[Law]

I didn't know you can run winnt.exe in DOS. Isn't it a 32bit application? Wouldn't you have to allocate some extended memory? It's been so long since I've work in DOS, the memories are gone now.

You won't be able to crap in DOS if this has a raid card, no driver is loaded in DOS by default. You'll have to go to the CD installation approach and supplying the driver when it ask to press F6.

 

[StupidRalph]

@ Inaris:
I had previously tried the bios for some solutions to no avail. I ended up having to download wipeout and added it to my bootdisk and used that to delete my partition. I then recreated it in using FDISK. I am now able to start the format but unfortunately it terminates at only 5%. But alteast I am making progress. I have seen this problem around the forum so i'll do a search on it.

@ Law
Yes you are able to run winnt from dos. It is recommeded that you make sure you use SmartDrive beforehand to cache files on your harddrive. If not your install will be drastically longer perhaps 10 times longer. Luckily my bootdisk has all of this bundled in my autoexec.bat. I get my bootdisk from HERE they also instruct how to install 2000 and XP from the command line.

 

[EricB]

follow inaris instruction. find your raid drivers first and copy them to floppy

 

[Inaris]

Can you post the model number information about this server? Also, if you want, pm me the service tag, and I'll look at it from there. Then I might be able to help you get further along...