When you try to install an Itanium-based version of Windows Server 2003, the text mode part of Setup may not work

When you try to install an Itanium-based version of Microsoft Windows Server 2003, the text mode part of Setup may not work. This problem may occur when one of the following conditions is true:

• Setup tries to create an Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) system partition.
• You try to manually create an EFI system partition.

This issue occurs if a disk that contains an EFI system partition is installed on a SCSI bus where the SCSI BIOS is disabled.

To resolve this issue, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Enable the SCSI BIOS on the SCSI controller that is hosting the EFI system partition

Contact your computer manufacturer for information about how to enable the SCSI BIOS of the SCSI disk controller so that it is available as a boot device. After you enable the SCSI BIOS, restart your computer, and then rerun Setup. The EFI system partition is automatically updated on the SCSI BIOS-enabled disk.

Method 2: Manually remove the existing EFI system partition

1. Start the computer by using the Windows Server 2003 installation CD-ROM.
2. Press R on the Welcome to Setup screen to start the Recovery Console.
3. When you are prompted, enter the Administrator account password.
4. At the command prompt, type diskpart.
5. Click to select the partition that contains the [Reserved] text.
6. When the reserve partition is selected, press D.
7. When you are prompted to confirm the reserved partition deletion warning, press ENTER, and then press L.
8. Press ESC to exit the Diskpart utility.
9. Restart your computer, and then restart Setup. The EFI system partition is automatically created on the SCSI BIOS-enabled disk.

Method 3: Erase the disk that contains the existing EFI system partition

1. Start the computer by using the Microsoft Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE).
2. At the command prompt, type diskpart.
   
   Note To display Diskpart Help, type ?.
3. Type list disk to display a list of installed disks.
4. Select the disk that contains the EFI system partition by typing select disk n. n is the number assigned to the appropriate disk.
   
   Warning The next step will delete all data on the selected hard disk drive. Make sure that the correct hard disk is selected and that you have a backup of that disk.
5. Erase the disk by typing clean at the command prompt.
6. Press ESC to exit the Diskpart utility.
7. Restart the computer.

After you remove all the partitions from the drive where you want to install the Itanium-based version of Windows Server 2003, restart your computer, and then restart Setup. The EFI system partition is automatically created on the SCSI BIOS-enabled disk.

Only one EFI system partition may exist on a computer. If the text mode part of Windows Server 2003 Setup detects an existing EFI system partition, Setup tries to reuse that partition. However, if the existing EFI system partition is located on a disk whose SCSI controller has been BIOS-disabled, the text mode part of Setup will not update this partition. Setup will not update the partition because the disk is not available as a boot device.