What drivers are we talking about?

[David_Sanz]

Hello to everyone.

I have a long-term question I would like someone from the forum explained to me.

A driver is a file that makes it posiible to communicate an OS with a device, right? And the OS that SRD loads when booting is a Windows-PE based on Vista, right again?

So, when I do a driver validation with the SRD... what is the program checking? I suppose that the SRD contains the Vista drivers for the server devices, is that correct? So it has nothing to do with the OS installed on the server (for example, Windows 2003).

So, when I try to recover a computer, all I can do is to make sure the SRD contains the Vista drivers, which are different from Windows 2003 drivers. So it may happen the SRD does not contain the target OS drivers, in which case it prompts for it at the end of a RAO recovery.

My question is: is there any way the driver validation checks the real OS drivers (not Vista)? If I add Windows 2003 drivers manually to a SRD... will it work or will it ask for them again when recovering? (in the last case, it would be very important that the documentation included a note specifying that the storage drivers are required when recovering a server).

Above all... am I right with all my assumptions?

Thank you very much to everyone.

[Jacob_A · Accepted solution]

Yes, that is what a driver basically does.

The Windows-PE OS for the 8.0.X SRD is Vista, but the 8.5.X SRD uses Server 2008.

The driver validation checks the device PCI strings (PCI VEN numbers) compared to the Vista/2008 drivers listed in the SRD and has nothing to do with the OS that is install on the server.

Correct, during a Restore Anyware restore if the drivers (Mass Storage and Network only) for the restored OS are not present on the SRD or in the restored servers driver repository then it will prompt you for the driver.

In order to manually add the driver to the SRD you would have to save it as an ISO and then edit the ISO using a third party tool. Then you would have to create sub folders in the DDB folder, which  is our repository, to place the drivers in. This really isn't support since the only authorized tool to alter the SRD is the "Create Recovery Disk" wizard.

[David_Sanz]

Thank you very much indeed, now I understand what happens in the background.

David

[Jacob_A]

Glad to help.  Let us know if we can help with anything else.