Since then, I have been lucky enough to not see any until lately. Two were just through my office and below are some notes on their configuration.

• Install hardware.
• Enable SATA RAID in BIOS.
• Boot server and press Ctrl+A as soon as you see:
  Press <Ctrl><A> for Adaptec RAID Configuration Utility
• Choose Array Configuration Utility.
• Select Create Array.
• Select a channel.
• Use Insert to add selected disks to array.
• Press Enter when finished.
• Select an array type while in Array Properties menu and press enter.
  Use RAID 1 for mirroring two drives.
  Use RAID 5 for more than two drives.
  If you only have one drive, you are in the wrong place.
• Type a label for the array and press enter.
• Go with the default array and stripe sizes.
• Leave Caching enabled.
• Select Done
• Allow 30 minutes to 3 hrs for array build to take place.
• Make array bootable by pressing Ctrl+B while array is selected from the Manage Arrays menu.
• Restart server.
• Proceed with ServerGuide installation. Skip RAID configuration by exiting without making changes. Be sure to skip the clear hard drives option during setup.
• As good practice, I recommend making the system drive 30 GB during setup. (if you must, this can be reduced to 20 GB for small drives)
• After server operating system is up, reboot at least once more for good luck. (don't skip this step)
• Follow up with partition and format of remaining drive space. (typically referred to as Data Drive and used for user data as well as application software.

Windows Server 2003 may require Service Pack 1 to be included on the installation CD.

One server I loaded was for a guy who was having trouble getting Windows to load properly. IBM support had replaced all hardware in the box and it still wouldn't boot. I used the steps above and didn't notice any trouble at all. (lucky me!)