Configuring 4-Channel IDE RAID Controller

So last night I had a hockey game. We were short guys cause evidently playing hockey on V-Day is...bad...or something. Anyway we lost and I had a sh*tty game. Bah.

Onto the new Exchange server on the cheap...

I took a Dell 600SC Pweredge server(http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/tower?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd) out of a use, because it was being misused (Someone had loaded XP PRo on it), I bought 2 - 500GB HD's ($100 each) and found a used 4-channel IDE RAID controller on eBay for $49 (The guy was taking offers, but he didn't accept any of my offers so I had to pay full price if I wanted it.)The server had 1GB of RAM already, but I will but some more later before I actually put the server in production.

So I installed the the RAID card, and hooked up the new HD's on channel's 0/1
Hooked it up and turned it on...

On First boot, you see the DELL BIOS window with the following choices:
F2 Setup
F10 Utility Mode
F12 PXE

Hit F10 and enter the Utility Mode

The BIOS correctly sees the CERC ATA 100/4ch RAID ControllerLSI Logic Corp
Your choices are then:

ctrl-M Run Config Utility
ctrl-H webBIOS

Hit ctrl-M, enter the Config Utility and you see a blue DOS program.

PERC/CERC BIOS Configuration Utility
Choose Configure:

Easy Config
New config (this wipes out old config and starts new)

Go into NEW CONFIG
Array Selection Menu
Hit [space] to put the drives online (first one, then the other)
Hit enter to end the array
Hit F10 to configure array (you will only see one)
--hit [space] to chose array
----it will then say SPAN-1
--hit F10 again to configure this SPAN 1(Here is where you configure RAID level, striping, Logical drives..etc)

(for LD1) Choose RAID 1 Choose the disk space for this LD1 (c:) (I chose 150GB)
(for LD2) Choose RAID 1 Choose the disk space for this LD2 (d:) (remaining space, 350GB)

Accept, and you should see LD0, LD1 with the correct sizes.

Back out to the Mgmt menu
--choose initialize
----Press [space] to choose LD
----Press F10 to initialize
**Status bar, done, any key to continue

(do this for each LD)

Hit ESC
Yes to exit
reboot

install OS

I wrote all this down because I couldn't find this kind of set-up notes for this, so I went in Blind. I hope this helps you.

It is my sister's Birthday today...I better call her. :)

Also I am going to Palm Springs today and that should rinse the rancid taste of that hockey game last night away. See you all next week!