Brad said:
We had a Compaq ProLiant server "good willed" to us when the manufacturer
was done using it, less an OS.
Can I install WinXPpro and will it see the 'raid' controller or will I have
to find drivers for the controller. It has a built in Ultra ATA100 Raid
controller on the MB.
I've never used or setup a Raid system so I don't know what to expect. I do
know there is a ROM for the Raid controller but that's about it.
Due to a limited budget right now I'd like to just load an OS and make it
usable.
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Compaq ProLiant ML310 (G1?) P4-2.0Ghz 1.5gig Ram 2-40gig HDD(raid1)
Brad
There are at least three kinds of disk interfaces in a computer.
1) Built into motherboard, and connected to the Southbridge.
For some of the Intel Southbridges, the drivers in WinXP SP2
could be sufficient (no extra driver needed, no need to press F6).
WinXP SP2 will have an I/O mapped driver for standard IDE drives,
and a PCI mapped driver. Moving the hard drive cable to a Southbridge
port might make it all work. You don't need to operate the drives in RAID
mode, for a simple install. One drive should do.
2) Motherboards can have separate hard drive controller chips
also soldered to the board. Whether operated in a plain mode
or in a software based RAID mode, chances are a driver would be
required. The connectors on the motherboard would be separated
from the Southbridge connectors. The connector labeling at the
motherboard level, may not be too descriptive of what is what.
3) You can use add-in cards for storage control as well. The add-in
slots on the motherboard could be PCI, PCI-X, or PCI Express,
or on servers, there are even a variety of proprietary solutions
for installing such devices. The cards can control EIDE, SATA, SCSI,
SAS, Fibre channel, all manner of disk interfaces. You'll need
drivers for these.
As for identifying what is inside the box, ideally it helps if the
model number completely specifies the hardware. But with a server
box, there are many opportunities for customization via the add-in
cards.
To run a software utility that can identify hardware, you'd need some
kind of OS present. For playing around, I use Knoppix (knopper.net)
or Ubuntu (ubuntu.com), as the CDs for those Linux OSes allow booting a
computer without installing anything on a hard drive. The OSes
work, by creating a RAM disk, and working within the confines of
the RAM disk. Using programs like "lspci", "lsusb", or "dmesg", I
can get limited information about the hardware, and do any testing
I might want to try.
The next easiest thing, is to take the cover off the computer, and
trace where the cable(s) for the hard drives are connected. Then,
see what unused connectors are available on the motherboard (or
on some controller card). That may give you some hints as to whether
there are some Southbridge ports you could be connecting to. Reading
actual chip numbers, would be more difficult, because at least for
modern systems, there are lots of heatsinks in the way. (The ICH5
Southbridge on my current motherboard, has no heatsink on it, so
I can actually read the part number on that one.)
Without software, how I'd start, is make an inventory of the
add-in cards installed, and whether your hard drives are connected
to them. Then examine the motherboard and base computer, to see
if you can figure out whether it is a G2, G3, G4, or G5 generation
model. The HP site has some info on their machines, but an
exact identification of the chassis in question would help
immensely. The more part numbers you can read off stuff,
or model numbers off a back label on the machine, anything like
that might help you run searches using the search engine on the
hp.com web site.
Paul
