Quick Format Fails & regular format is slower than slugs

hardware:
HP BL465p blade dual AMD processors, 16GB memory
QLH2462 HBA (firmware 1.26 & Adapter settings all according to Xiotech
support).
Xiotech 3000s 10GB virtual disk
Cisco 9509 MDS fabric

Software:
Windows 2003 R2 64-bit
STOR Miniport 9.1.4.15 64-bit version


Issue:
Ok...I'm trying to install windows 2003 to boot from SAN...just like all the
other servers and blades in our enterprise.
I put in the CD and boot the blade...the server sees the SAN and it's
attached vDisk and begins the installation process.

When I get to the point where it asks for the floppy for the QLogic the
first time, no issue. the system reads the floppy and continues along the
install process.

I get to the point where it's going to format the 10G disk & I've done both
of the following:
1. selected the Quick Format (never had an issue with this on the other 30+
server installs we've done previously) and it gets to 20%, hangs & then fails
out with the error message saying that it can't complete the format process
because the disk is bad.

2. selected the normal format on a subsequent installation attempt & it's
formatting at about 1GB / hr. Previously, i've seen these formats happen
within 5 minutes for 10G.

3. using another server, i was able to create an NTFS formatted 10G disk
and then assign it as LUN0 to the server I'm trying to install on. Quick
format works just fine here with the same STORport driver. When I get to the
installation phase, the installation program cannot see my floppy disk
attached to the server or via any other method...therefore, the installation
can't see the disk because it can't use the embedded qlogic driver on the
original installation media.

I've contacted Xiotech regarding this issue & they're pointing that it's an
OS issue. Could it be the version of windows 2003 i'm installing with? Any
thoughts or ideas would be appreciated. I ultimately only need to install 3
times, then I can clone the OS for all the other blades. I'm just trying to
avoid over 30 hours of formatting when it should only take about 3 minutes.

thanks,
Corky
.

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