Dell PERC 4/SC RAID Controller

[kevinthenerd]

I'm trying to install Windows XP on a Dell PowerEdge 1600SC that came with a Dell PERC4/SC RAID controller. The LSI drivers I found for XP didn't work during installation, but the 2003 driver for the DELL PERC controllers managed to find the controller and tell me correctly what drives I have installed on it. (I didn't try the 2000 driver yet.) Should I use the 2003 driver on XP? Will this give me problems later? It's sitting on the blue setup screen now, and I can't decide what kind of risk this is to the data integrity. (The SCSI drive that I want to install Windows onto needs to be reformatted, and the other SCSI drive has 200GB of work-related data that I need to keep. I believe there are five physical drives in the system, set up for two logical drives.)

Thanks.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Note that I couldn't actually find XP drivers for the PERC/SC... only 2000 and 20003. The LSI drivers (MegaRAID 320-1, which has the same main chip as this thing from what I gather) wouldn't work.

 

[kevinthenerd]

The 2003 drivers detected the RAID and properly detected the logical drives.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Update: The 2000 driver also finds the controller and correctly identifies the logical drives. Which of the two should I use?

 

[RebateMonger]

Use the 2003 drivers for XP. XP is closer to 2003 than 2000. Often, though, you'll find that the drivers for XP, 2000, and 2003 are the same.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Is it safe to delete a partition, create a new one, and format it with the 2003 drivers? Those aren't your "every day" functions, so I figured that a driver would have to be pretty specialized to do that. I wish I knew more about RAIDS in general. *sigh

 

[kevinthenerd]

What's the easiest way to format the Windows partition? This would be easy if I didn't need SCSI RAID drivers to access it, but since I do, this pretty much eliminates using a standard floppy disk. (I WOULD see if Knoppix can identify it, but accessing NTFS under Linux is often spotty.)

Edit: I'll assume Windows can handle the job if I'm willing to trust the 2003 RAID drivers.

 

[spikespiegal]

Dell is using LSI controller chips for their Perc RAID? Wow....didn't know that. In general I've found Dell's integrated Perc RAID the least troublesome of the big vendors.

Use the XP/2003 drivers.

Are you trying to delete the Windows partition you are trying to boot off of, or another partition? If it's not your boot partition, use Windows disk manager in compmgmt.msc

 

[spyordie007]

The 2003 Drivers right off Dells site should work fine:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloa...EO_1600SC&os=WNET&osl=en&deviceid=3428

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: spyordie007
The 2003 Drivers right off Dells site should work fine:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloa...EO_1600SC&os=WNET&osl=en&deviceid=3428

That's what I have. Thanks. I just wasn't sure how safe it is to use 2003 drivers under XP.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Use the 2003 drivers for XP. XP is closer to 2003 than 2000. Often, though, you'll find that the drivers for XP, 2000, and 2003 are the same.

XP was not listed anywhere on Dell's site. There are unique drivers for 2000 and 2003.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: spikespiegal
Dell is using LSI controller chips for their Perc RAID? Wow....didn't know that. In general I've found Dell's integrated Perc RAID the least troublesome of the big vendors.

They use a couple of different vendors....
(This was grabbed off of the PowerEdge 1300 drivers page. The 1600SC only has LSI.)

Adaptec PERC2
Adaptec PERC2/Si
Adaptec PERC3/Di
Adaptec PERC3/Si
American Megatrends (AMI) PERC
American Megatrends (AMI) PERC2/DC
American Megatrends (AMI) PERC2/SC
LSI Logic CERC ATA 100
LSI Logic PERC 4/DC
LSI Logic PERC 4/Di
LSI Logic PERC 4/SC
LSI Logic PERC 4e/DC
LSI Logic Perc 4e/Di
LSI Logic PERC 4e/Si
LSI Logic PERC3/DC
LSI Logic PERC3/DCL
LSI Logic PERC3/QC
LSI Logic PERC3/SC