I faced a unique problem yesterday, while installing RAID drivers for Windows Server 2003. I have setup RAID on many Linux distributions but this was my first chance with Windows Server.

As we know, the option is to press ‘F6′ as soon as the windows setup starts and we will get a prompt at later stage to provide RAID drivers. I tried that option and was surprised to find that it asked me to provide a floppy with drivers. I was rubbing my eyes to see if I have read it properly or not, but it was written clearly – No floppy drive found, please install floppy drive or F3 to quit or ESC to install OEM drivers. I thought ESC was the best option but that gives a BSOD in few minutes with error code 0x0000007B. Googling it I figured out a lot of people have faced similar issue.

To solve this problem, one needs to find a floppy drive and fit into the system. Then comes the challenging task of finding a floppy which works properly and does not ask to format every time you insert it in. If you are trying to install Intel Matrix Storage system, you can find the instructions here (PDF). After preparing floppy, it will give few more options and installation will continue in general fashion.

My question to Microsoft is – Why in a advanced server system would you put only floppy as a medium to install drivers? What purpose does that solve? Even if we say it was in 2002 you build that OS, why don’t give other medium to install or provide a patch that will fix the issue and we won’t face a problem in 2009. At what blood alcohol concentration level MS developers work?

source (XKCD – http://xkcd.com/323/)