Help needed to load RAID drivers or crack password

[TheOldMan346]

Sorry in advance for the length of this but I've been beating my head against the wall and only succeeding in getting a serious headache!

We recently acquired a used RackMountPlus server on eBay. The server was loaded with Win2k and had already been used in production. The MB is an Intel 845 with a Promise Technologies PDC20276 RAID chip on board. It's got a RAID array of 2 40MB drives. There is NO diskette drive.

Here is the problem. When we powered it up and attempted to log in, no one knew the accounts and passwords that had been used on it. All attempts to "guess" the password failed. Attempts to use Knoppix or any of the other Unix/Linux based tools to reset the password fail since they don't see the drives. We attempted to load W2K3 Server but it also does not recognize the RAID array. Since there is no diskette drive, we cannot load the drivers from that. We attempted to connect a USB diskette but that gets treated as a fixed disk and is not useable during setup. We attempted to connect a physical drive to the FDD connector but there is no power connector from the power supply so scratch that. I even tried connecting the power from another computer and the interface cable from this one to the diskette drive but that just resulted in the drive in use light always on and the drive being inaccessible.

I created a custom install slipstreaming the drivers into the install but the RAID is still not recognized. I think I did it correctly but I have not done this type of custom install before. What's confusing me is that the physical drives are plugged into IDE channels but the drivers at least appear to be SCSI oriented. Is this to deal with the RAID chip?

Any suggestions on how to crack the password or load the drivers would really be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

What goes around - comes around.
The Old Man

 

[Serbtastic]

Can you disable the RAID in the BIOS and use the drives independently?

 

[TheOldMan346]

I tried deleting the array in the utility but it automatically rebuilds on reboot.

I tried changing the detect sequence from RAID, ATA133 to ATA133, RAID in the MOBO BIOS but still says no drives.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

What goes around - comes around.
The Old Man

 

[dkediger]

I even tried connecting the power from another computer and the interface cable from this one to the diskette drive but that just resulted in the drive in use light always on and the drive being inaccessible.

Data cable reversed? IIRC, those aren't often keyed, so its very easy to do at one end or the other.

 

[anawrocki]

How about a USB Floppy Drive?

 

[TheOldMan346]

Good possibility, dkediger. I'll have to try that again.

anawrocki, that was our first alternative. For some reason it was detected as a fixed disk so even if you pressed F6 during setup, we'd get a message stating that no diskette drive was detected during setup. I did not personally try this one so maybe I can try it again.

Thanks to you both.

What goes around - comes around.
The Old Man

 

[sproot]

You could try to get a knoppix or somesuch disk with the promise drivers installed.

That would allow you to see the disks and reset the password.