Help & advice please anyone!

[robdollar]

Sorry for the generic topic, I know its annoying

I have just aquired (for free, it was being scrapped) a Silicon Systems SSL 1225 server unit that I can't find any info on.

All I know at present is, it has 4 120gb HDs, a CD drive, RAID (which i've only just learnt the meaning of, can I remove this or is built into the mobo??), and thats about it.

I would like to install windows on it and use it as a low- end gaming pc of some sort, but I don't seem to be able to boot my windows [see below linux people] install CD off it. The CD drive is first in the boot options.

Failing that, my linux CD also wont boot (ive tried multiple copies of various distros), so I'm a bit lost as it has a password on it from the place I got it from, which I don't have access to. I just want to wipe everything and start fresh.

Any ideas or obsolutely anything greatly appreciated!!

-Rob.

 

[Invisible]

RAID is the hard drives working together, idk someone explain it better, if you want linux info post in the linux forum about 1000 pixels down from here

 

[kobe24]

lol 1000 pixcels, raid is data being slit into halfs so half the file is on one hdd and the other half is on the other hdd, bu the computer thinks its one hdd so its like half the the accuall size so it can be read quicker

 

[baron5]

raid is just to simple configuration/placement of your hard drives driven by a raid controller and also comes in different setup's the most common being, raid 0,raid 1 and raid 0+1.

raid 0 uses data stripping so it splits every bit of data over a given amount of hdd's making them work together kind of sli, which increases overall speed.

raid 1 is basically just a mirror so u could have 2 hdd's and the second copies all the data from the first one providing extra security.

raid 0+1 uses obviously both of these, for example u could have 2 hdd's in raid 0 (data striping) and another 2 hdd's mirroring all the data from the hdd's in raid 0.

im not too sure about the windows cd error though...