Installing Windows 7 on a Dell server

I have a Dell server T420 on which I'm trying to install Windows 7. It seems that Windows cannot find the hard drive, and prompts for drivers. I've tried extracting drivers from a Windows server 2008 but Windows said "Couldn't find any signed drivers".

Do I stand a chance of installing Windows 7 on a T420?

Randomblue

Posted 2013-04-16T09:28:49.920

Reputation: 2 547

Answers

Why are you trying to install Windows 7 on a server? From the tech specs:

Operating System

Microsoft® Windows Server® 2012

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, x64 (includes Hyper-V® v2)

Novell® SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server

Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®

Virtualization options:

Citrix® XenServer®

VMware® vSphere® ESX™ and ESXi™

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization®

It's entirely possible that the hardware you are messing with does not support Windows 7 period, so if you could clarify what your intent is here that would help a lot.

pzkpfw

Posted 2013-04-16T09:28:49.920

Reputation: 963

I need a computer with Windows 7 PCIe access, and that's the only free computer I have. We've managed to install a driver, and partition the disk now, but we get "error 8030001". Also, when changing the BIOS priority of the hard drive, we get the error "BOOTMGR is missing" – Randomblue – 2013-04-16T09:41:47.307

What do you mean by "Windows 7 PCIe access"? Please explain your intent (that includes the end goal). – pzkpfw – 2013-04-16T11:14:45.870

You can install Windows 7:

just go to bios setup;
select SATA mode;
and be sure it is not in RAID mode - just choose SATA mode

Keff

Posted 2013-04-16T09:28:49.920

Reputation: 1