2003 server on HP 530

olufon

I just got an HP 530 laptop with win vista and im abt writing 2003 server exam n i want to install server...but its nt seeing my hard disk..wat can i do?003

HeroPsycho

Use VMware Server or Virtual PC 2007, both are free. Install it on a VM. No need to blow your laptop OS away for that.

undomiel

I'll cast my vote for VirtualBox as well. Desktop virtualization products would be the best as you could run several virtual machines simultaneously rather than having to build separate physical machines for each.

/usr

You need to turn off Embedded SATA in the BIOS, or load the SATA drivers on a floppy disk (you'll need an external USB floppy drive) and hit F6 when prompted when booting from the 2003 CD.

Or just use Virtual PC like the others suggested.

olufon

I installed the vmware but the cd is not detected by the machine.It gives me the same hard drive not found notification.I disabled sata from the bios and then the vista didnt boot.Can i disable the SATA and install the server without it wiping off the vista from my hard disk as i did not partition my system.More suggestions please

msteinhilber

VMWare should still be able to recognize the optical drive regardless of having SATA enabled in BIOS. If it was recognizing the CD, but you were getting to the point where you were to select the hard drive to install Sever 2003 on, then this may happen if you selected the option to create your virtual hard drive as SCSI, in which case you can use this driver as a F6 floppy (it's an image file you can mount as a physical drive under VMWare):

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/drivers_tools.html

You could also just delete and recreate the virtual machine and use IDE emulation for the hard disk.

If you are having an issue where for some reason VMWare is not recognizing the optical drive at all, then I suppose a workaround could be to download something like ISO Recorder for Vista which integrates into the shell providing an easy way to create an ISO of a CD (http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm). That way you can mount the ISO as a physical drive under VMWare and boot from the ISO instead of the actual CD.