I'm trapped in a catch 22, so will try a plea here.
Older PE2970 with older BIOS and CDROM only. Trying to install Windows 2012. Can't install from DVD, can't get a Win2012 image on bootable CDROM; can't install from USB, because older BIOS doesn't provide the USB-boot options others have suggested; can't upgrade the BIOS because all of these tools like SBUU/SUU require DVD; can't use the OS-dependent firmware update tools, because system has no OS.
So, ok, just go back to Win2003 CDs to get an OS installed, from which I can run tools to update BIOS, after which I should be able to make the system USB-bootable, and thus install Win2012. Problem is that the Win2003 CD won't install as it doesn't recognize the hard drives, whether I leave as a PERC RAID volume, or remove volume and have bare phyical disks only.
Am I missing something? How can I get a CD-bootable, non-OS-dependent tool that will allow me to update the BIOS, so that I can then boot from USB and get an OS installed?
TIA