Theres Gotta be a BIOS/RAID Junkie here somewhere

[scott8813]

ok so heres my situation. without going into frivalous detail me and my girl of 6 years just split and she took our pc with her. i have a dell poweredge 840 with 4 75 gig sas drives in it. i have win server 03,winxp pro, and/or vista home on disk for installation and the pc is running:

Phoenix ROM BIOS Plus version 1.10 A05
one 2.66 GHz fual core processor, processor BUS 1066 MHz,L2 cache 4MB

Broadcom NetXtreme Ethernet Boot Agent v.8.3.9

PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller BIOS
HA-0 (BUS 2 DEV14) PERC 5/i adapter
FW package: 5.2.1-0066

IPMI Server Management Configuration Utility 1.5

Baseboard Management Controller Revision 1.75
Primary Backplane Firmware Revision 1.05

Broadcom Basecode PXE-2.1 v1.0.4
Broadcom UNDI PXE-2.1 v8.3.1

That being said, i can build a computer and all the inards and can do some seriious tweaking with any version of windows but dont have the first damn clue when it comes to bios settings and/or RAID setup.

I want to say screw a server and just somehow transform this hunk of components into a desktop pc. Is there anyone out there with the expertise and time to help me get back to SPJ?

(every single one of my posts for the last week including this one have been via my pro. which is also why it took me from 11pm to approx 6:45am to hunt down that working version of coreplayer 1.3.0 for this site)

PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

[puertoblack2003]

thats a complex setup you have there buddy! that would be by boyee cup of tea..I just have a simple setup with a ASUS mother board dual channel 4 gigs ram, 500 gigs HD primary..thanks to spj donators and 2 250gig backup running windows xp pro tweaked to the fullest. So this is as simple as i can get to know, and some i was taught on.Sorry there but i'm in the learning stages.

[Superman369]

I'm not sure, but I think Kaos is a genius when it comes to this stuff. Maybe he will chime in

[VenumX]

“ Originally Posted by scott8813 ”

ok so heres my situation. without going into frivalous detail me and my girl of 6 years just split and she took our pc with her. i have a dell poweredge 840 with 4 75 gig sas drives in it. i have win server 03,winxp pro, and/or vista home on disk for installation and the pc is running:

Phoenix ROM BIOS Plus version 1.10 A05
one 2.66 GHz fual core processor, processor BUS 1066 MHz,L2 cache 4MB

Broadcom NetXtreme Ethernet Boot Agent v.8.3.9

PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller BIOS
HA-0 (BUS 2 DEV14) PERC 5/i adapter
FW package: 5.2.1-0066

IPMI Server Management Configuration Utility 1.5

Baseboard Management Controller Revision 1.75
Primary Backplane Firmware Revision 1.05

Broadcom Basecode PXE-2.1 v1.0.4
Broadcom UNDI PXE-2.1 v8.3.1

That being said, i can build a computer and all the inards and can do some seriious tweaking with any version of windows but dont have the first damn clue when it comes to bios settings and/or RAID setup.

I want to say screw a server and just somehow transform this hunk of components into a desktop pc. Is there anyone out there with the expertise and time to help me get back to SPJ?

(every single one of my posts for the last week including this one have been via my pro. which is also why it took me from 11pm to approx 6:45am to hunt down that working version of coreplayer 1.3.0 for this site)

PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

so you are saying you want to take the 4 - 75GB harddrives and make them into one 300gb hdd and install regular windoze xp on it so that you have a regular computer instead of having raid setups for backups?

[scott8813]

i wish i had been all over this when i first got it (for free) and upgraded stuff like the ram and hd but i had at the time "My Frankenstein" i was using (a compilation i made from approx 4 computers all hacked, cracked, and rewired to make a pretty hardcore machine from 4 inferior outdated machines. then with spare pocket cash threw some mods at it) i've been puting pc's together since i was 10. i've always had a passion 4 technology and taught myself everything i know today.

--------- New Post Merged on 24/12/2008 at 0244 --------

“ Originally Posted by VenumX ”

so you are saying you want to take the 4 - 75GB harddrives and make them into one 300gb hdd and install regular windoze xp on it so that you have a regular computer instead of having raid setups for backups?

yes sir. thats my book kn a nutshell

[VenumX]

“ Originally Posted by scott8813 ”

yes sir. thats my book kn a nutshell

so you're basically talking about spanning drives, aka raid 0. this is dangerous only because if one drive fails, they all fail ( data-wise ) if you want to do this, you already have the raid controller, you just have to use the manual, specific to your raid bios, to setup the raid. Performance-wise this is the best option! I dont see why you would have any issue getting this setup, if you dont need anything off the harddrives wipe them and install xp on the master drive, you should be good to go after that.

[scott8813]

i get that much but what i'm needing to know is what exact way i need to do the raid config utility (almost step by step sadly enough) and also what all settings to apply to the bios setup utility (F2)

[puertoblack2003]

“ Originally Posted by scott8813 ”

i get that much but what i'm needing to know is what exact way i need to do the raid config utility (almost step by step sadly enough) and also what all settings to apply to the bios setup utility (F2)

try this vid http://www.pcworld.com/video/id,354-...d,4/video.html

[scott8813]

“ Originally Posted by puertoblack2003 ”

try this vid http://www.pcworld.com/video/id,354-...d,4/video.html

vid showed how to install hardware. i'm good on that. give me a sec and i'll post pics of what i need

[scott8813]

my internal setup is a thing of beauty but heres what i need

[scott8813]

Nobody? You said Kaos huh? Cool? I'll see if I can get a tip............................................... there should be a way to give thread invites.

[puertoblack2003]

“ Originally Posted by scott8813 ”

Nobody? You said Kaos huh? Cool? I'll see if I can get a tip............................................... there should be a way to give thread invites.

wow, i guess you have to do some hard core research, on my machine i have it set to auto to detect.. ide so i guess someone with advance knowledge can help

[scott8813]

You have no idea!!!! I bought this off of a friend for a very rediculously low price, still in original box (no questions were asked) and apparently it had been presetup before shipped and when you went to log on as admin for the first time it required a password that then wanted to log on to the internet to verify. So like the dumba$$ i am i screwed with every sence of it that i could to remove it. Well mission was a success but screwed up everything and ended up having to wipe al of the drives clean in hopes to just reinstall. That would have been fine but i have no idea how to set these up (which apparently is required first and foremost.) Anyway I have logged hours online searching for written or video help on this and not even youtube can come anywhere close to the specified expertise that i require. This is why I'm searching for a BIOS/RAID Junkie and with 45,000 site users here I figured that there was at least one person that would be able to "hold my hand" through this.

[BiG JeW]

just been keeping an eye on this thread and i kinda know how you feel ... i would try more of a pcjunkie forum.... goodluck though!

[scott8813]

“ Originally Posted by BiG JeW ”

just been keeping an eye on this thread and i kinda know how you feel ... i would try more of a pcjunkie forum.... goodluck though!

I considered that and may do so but i figured that i would start with my junkie home. Has never let me down yet!!! (and to be frank waiting for kaos to log on to get a yea or nay. will probably pm.)

[Moebius]

It's been a while since I've messed with SCSI, let alone SAS, but if it's a Dell, then I'm assuming it's using some variant of their Perc 5 controller. If that's the case, they should have a fairly thorough setup guide on their support site.

Edit: Just took a look at your screenies and saw it is the perc. Here's a link to the doc on it. I've not done this in a while, but if I'll try and see if I can run through the guide and remember what settings you'd need.

first time I've posted a link since the new rules or what-not, hopefully I'll get this right.

Code

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/RAID/PERC5/en/UG/HTML/index.htm

[scott8813]

they have some useful stuff here. thank you. One thing however that they don't show you is how to do what's not intended for their equipment. I want all four of my drives to act as one and for this to no longer be a server but an overpowered personal pc.

[Moebius]

“ Originally Posted by scott8813 ”

they have some useful stuff here. thank you. One thing however that they don't show you is how to do what's not intended for their equipment. I want all four of my drives to act as one and for this to no longer be a server but an overpowered personal pc.

This doesn't help your situation directly, but I would advise against spanning all 4 into a single volume. You'd be better served with two 150 gig volumes, or even a 75 gig primary and 225 secondary. That gives you a much better recovery/data survival chance in case of a failure.

[scott8813]

“ Originally Posted by Moebius ”

This doesn't help your situation directly, but I would advise against spanning all 4 into a single volume. You'd be better served with two 150 gig volumes, or even a 75 gig primary and 225 secondary. That gives you a much better recovery/data survival chance in case of a failure.

I'm fine with whatever works as long as it functions as a personal pc instead of server and boots as a computer would normally

[gadget945]

Did you ever get this setup done to your liking?

Just wondering.

[scott8813]

“ Originally Posted by gadget945 ”

Did you ever get this setup done to your liking?

Just wondering.

no actually i havent. i was starting to think that i'll have to pay someone to come by here and punch four keys and then tell me it will be $600. But I still welcome any advice anyone has to offer.

[gadget945]

Dude - don't know if this will help you or not, but my brother does stuff like this, he builds websites too. He's against doing things over the phone, he's tried to do it with me more than once, it's irritating for him.

I forwarded him some of the clips that you had posted, and asked him what he thought. He's going to get back to me.

In the meantime, can you send me those screen shots in an email? I think they might help him decide if he can help you or not.