Preparing Adaptec-Based Integrated RAID Controller Disks for the Operating System

A P P E N D I X B

If your Sun Fire server uses an Adaptec-based integrated RAID controller (also known as the Sun StorageTek SAS RAID Internal HBA, SG-XPCIESAS-R-INT-Z), you will need to prepare its disks so that Windows will be able to access them. This is done using the contoller’s BIOS configuration utility, which is accessible during server boot.

The Adaptec RAID Configuration Utility can be used to create single volume disks, or to create a RAID configuration using multiple disks. You can create up to 20 volumes. Each volume can contain a single disk or a RAID (RAID levels 0, 1, 1E, 10, 5, 5EE, 50, 6, or 60--with global or dedicated hot spares).

Using the Adaptec Configuration Utility

Additional Information

Note - If you have a disk using this controller with a preinstalled bootable array volume (and it is not part of an existing RAID that you want to keep) and you want to overwrite it to install Windows, no other disk preparation is required. During the Windows operating system installation you will be presented the option to overwrite any existing partition(s) within the array volume.

Using the Adaptec Configuration Utility

To prepare a disk to allow Windows to access it, do the following:

1. Power down and restart your server.

2. During the BIOS POST process, press Ctrl-A when prompted to launch the Adaptec RAID Configuration Utility.

3. At the RAID Configuration Utility main menu, under options, select Array Configuration Utility.

4. Select Initialize Drives.

5. Select the boot drive (at the top of the list, typically: Dev01).

6. Press the Insert key and press Enter.

7. At the warning dialog box, press Y.

The drive is initialized.

8. At the main menu, select Create Array and press Enter.

9. Select the boot drive.

10. Press the Insert key and press Enter.

11. At the Array Properties screen, set boot drive properties as appropriate for your setup (or choose the defaults).

Press F1 help for details on available properties.

12. Select Done and press Enter.

Note that in order for Windows to see other the hard disk drives in your server, you will need to first initialize them and create an array volume or RAID using the Adaptec RAID Configuration Utility. Each volume created by the Adaptec RAID Configuration Utility will be seen by the operating system and the server’s BIOS as a single disk drive.

13. At the main menu, press ESC, and then press ESC again.

14. Select Yes to exit the utility.

The system will reboot. The disk is now ready to be used by Windows.

Additional Information

For more information on using your Adaptec-based integrated RAID controller, refer to the following documents on the Sun documentation web site:

Sun Intel/Adaptec BIOS RAID Utility User’s Manual (820-4708)

Sun StorageTek SAS RAID HBA Installation Guide (820-1847)

Sun StorageTek RAID Manager Software User’s Guide (820-1177)

To obtain these documents, navigate to:

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/dsk-cntrl