Many of the most popular Operating System Deployment tools use Plug and Play (PNP) to install hardware-specific drivers during OS Deployment to a Windows system. If you currently use Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr), take a look at the Dell Server Deployment Pack for ConfigMgr. If you use the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), Windows Deployment Services, or any other Operating System Deployment technology, take a look at this process.

This document will walk you through the process of extracting Dell PowerEdge Server drivers so that they can be consumed by multiple OS Deployment processes.

  1. Obtain the latest "Dell Systems Management Tools and Documentation" DVD.
  2. Burn the DVD to disk, or use a tool such as Virtual CloneDrive to mount the drive as a local drive letter. (We'll call it D: for this document)
  3. From the command prompt, navigate to D:\server_assistant\driver_tool\bin
  4. Run make_driver_dir.exe --help to see the help info:make_driver_dir_HelpInfo
  5. From the Example above, you can see that we're extracting drivers for the Dell PowerEdge 1855 for Server 2003 (x86)
  6. To list full detail for platform and OS support, run the following command: make_driver_dir.exe -i d: --info | more
  7. Note that the platform (model name) and OS are case sensitive (all lowercase). Here is a list of current platform and OS keywords:
    OS Code
    OS Description
    w2003sbs Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Service Pack 2
    esx400 VMware ESX 4.0
    rh50_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (version 5 Update 3) x86_64
    esx310 VMware ESX 3.5 Update 4
    w2008ebs_64 Microsoft Windows Essential Business Server 2008 x64 (64 bit Edition)
    suse10_64 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 x86_64
    w2008 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x86 (32 bit Edition)
    w2008_64 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64 (64 bit Edition)
    w2008sbs_64 Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008 x64 (64 bit Edition)
    w2003_64 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 x64 Edition
    w2000 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4
    rh50 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (version 5 Update 3) x86
    w2003 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2
    rh40_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (version 4 Update 7) x86_64
    suse11_64 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 x86_64
    rh40 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (version 4 Update 7) x86
    w2008r2_64 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64
  8. Execute make_driver_dir.exe -i d: --info | more for the Platform Support Matrix
    Command Line
    Description
    make_driver_dir.exe -i d:\ -d c:\drv -p per900 -o w2008 --extract Extracts the PowerEdge R900 drivers for Windows Server 2008 x86 to c:\drv\
    make_driver_dir.exe -i d:\ -d c:\drv -p per900 -o w2008_64 --extract Extracts the PowerEdge R900 drivers for Windows Server 2008 x64 to c:\drv\
    make_driver_dir.exe -i d:\ -d c:\drv -o w2008_64 --extract Extract drivers for all platforms that support Windows Server 2008 x64
    make_driver_dir.exe -i d:\ -d c:\drv -o w2003_64 --extract Extract drivers for all platforms that support Windows Server 2003 x64
    make_driver_dir.exe -i d:\ -d c:\drv -o w2003 --extract Extract drivers for all platforms that support Windows Server 2003 x86
  9. The following image shows the drivers that are extracted (in raw format) when using make_driver_dir.exe command.
  10. MakeDriverDir_Results