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Poweredge 1800, Purchased used computer and wanted to convert it as a desktop computer
Hello
I purchased a used Dell Poweredge 1800. When i opened the case I saw that it had 2 80gig sata hard drive. I assume somewhere the original owner setup as mirror hard drive. I went ahead and tried to install window 2003 server R2 and the software indicated that it couldnt find any hard drives. But if i turn on the computer and it goes directly to desktop. So not sure what i need to do to fix the problem. I dont need to use the mirror setup for this computer. I would prefer to have one hard drive have the windows OS on it and the 2nd hard drive to just hold data. I figure i need to do something in BIOS but what i dont know. This would be my first time using the server.
Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciate and if you do respond please explain in simple and step by step instructions for me.
thank you
DELL-Steve R
62 Posts
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September 5th, 2011 08:00
Hi, it sounds like you need to install the driver for the RAID controller. You can do this from a floppy disk at the start of the OS install when it asks you to press F6 or you can add it to your OS image using an application like nLite. Another option would be to just disable the SATA RAID in the BIOS. Let us know if this works for you.
Steve
theflash1932
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September 5th, 2011 08:00
You need the driver for the RAID controller:
CERC SATA 2s (onboard RAID):
CERC SATA 1.5/6CH (add-in RAID card):
2003 can only access RAID drivers from floppy, by hitting the F6 prompt during Windows Setup. If you don't want to (or can't) use the floppy method, you will need to use nLiteOS.com to integrate the driver into your installation media. Also, if installing to a RAID array, it is strongly recommended you delete and recreate the array in the CTRL-A utility before installing.
If you want to use drives independently, just know you will not have the data redundancy that you have with RAID 1. If using the 2s, you will need to turn off RAID in the BIOS Setup (F2). IF using the 1.5/6, you will need to configure each drive as a single-disk RAID 0 (or as a volume) in the CTRL-A utility, accessible during POST ... or remove the controller altogether.