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I just bought a Dell Poweredge 2850 from Craigslist and for the most part I'm happy with it's $300 price-tag, but I cannot figure out where to configure the embedded hardware raid...

I've seen online you should hit <CTRL-M>, but while booting my box never says that. I have <CTRL-A> (I think) for an LSI Logic config, but that seems to just program SCSI and verify drives on my SCSI-A and SCSI-B. Anyone have a clue where this RAID config is?

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Could you verify which, if any RAID controller is installed? The CTRL+M combo is for the Dell PERC card's BIOS. It is possible, as you mention LSI, that another, or no, card is installed. – jscott Jun 27 '11 at 19:14
Have you looked at the DELL website? I'm sure they might have the procedure to do this. – mdpc Jun 27 '11 at 19:15
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It sounds like the server doesn't have a RAID controller. – joeqwerty Jun 27 '11 at 19:16
Don't forget to mark an answer. – mfinni Jun 28 '11 at 20:36

1 Answer

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Are you sure that you bought it with a PERC? It's optional, it might not be in there. Crack open the box and see what you've got.

If you hit F2 to go into the BIOS, you can also see what's configured there. I suppose it could be physically present but disabled in the BIOS.

As you found - the BIOS was configured to not use the RAID adapter. Once you enabled it, you see the option to get into the SCSI BIOS or config.

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