Today I was installing Windows server 2003 SP1 on one of our retired PowerEdge 2550 Dell servers to test our new intranet site, and for some reason I was getting the error: The file amdide.sys could not be found after failing to install the server a couple of times I realized I was going nowhere, so I made a small research about it, and I learned that I was using an outdated Dell system management CD. the one I was using was version 8.4 and according to dell version 8.7 was online for download.

after downloading the new Dell system management ISO image and booting from it, everything worked fine. I don’t know why the older version did not work when it says on the CD that it supports Server 2003. I might postulate that it was because of SP1 on server 2003 though, the old software could support server 2003, but without any service pack.

if you are having the same problem download the new system management ISO CD image from dell here