Setting the System BIOS and Configuring Disks for Intel AHCI SATA or RAID

To Set the System BIOS and Configure Your Disks for Intel SATA or RAID

1. Power on the system.
2. Press the F2 key at the Sun logo screen to enter the BIOS Setup menu.
3. In the BIOS Utility dialog, select Advanced -> IDE Configuration.
   The IDE Configuration menu is displayed.
4. In the IDE Configuration menu, select Configure SATA as and press Enter.
   A menu is displayed listing the SATA options.
5. In the SATA Options menu, select one of the following:
   
   • AHCI for a system using SATA disks (non-RAID).
   • RAID to create an Intel Matrix RAID.
6. Press F10 to save your changes, exit the BIOS Utility, and reboot the server. Then, do one of the following:
   
   • If you are not planning to make your boot disk part of RAID, proceed to install your operating system (see Chapter 4, Installing Windows Vista Ultimate, Chapter 5, Installing Windows Server 2008, or Chapter 6, Installing Windows XP.
   • If you are planning to make your boot disk part of a RAID, proceed to the next step.
7. To make your boot disk part of a RAID, press Ctrl-I when prompted during the boot process to enter the Intel Matrix Storage Manager option ROM utility.
   The Intel Matrix Storage Manager main menu is displayed.
8. At the main menu, select the 1. Create RAID Volume menu option.
   The Create RAID Volume menu is displayed.
9. In the Create RAID Volume menu, do the following:
   
   1. Provide a name for the RAID volume and press Enter (or press Enter to accept the default).
   2. Select a RAID level (0, 1, 5, 10) and press Enter.
      Use the up and down arrow keys to scroll through the available RAID level values.
      

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      Note –RAID 0 provides no fault tolerance.
      

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   3. Select the disks for the array.
   4. If prompted, select the strip size and press Enter (or press Enter to accept the default (128KB)).
   5. Specify the volume capacity and press Enter (or press Enter to accept the default (total size of selected disks)).
   6. Select Create Volume and press Enter.
      The following warning message appears stating that all data could be lost:
      Are you sure you want to create this volume? Y or N.
   7. Press Y to confirm the volume creation.
      The new RAID volume is created. Information describing the RAID volume appears (for example, the RAID ID, Volume Name, Level, Status).
10. Select EXIT and press Enter to exit the Intel Matrix Storage Manager utility.
    A confirmation message appears confirming that you want to exit the Intel Matrix Storage Manager utility.
11. Press Y to confirm the exit.
12. To create a partition on the RAID volume, insert the Tools and Drivers DVD into the workstation's CD/DVD drive.
13. Reboot the system.
    The system boots to the Tools and Drivers DVD.
14. At the main menu, select 4. Exit to DOS.
15. At the DOS prompt, enter the following command:
    fdisk
16. When prompted that the hard disk sector zero has no boot sector ID, press Y to initialize the disk.
17. Do one of the following