David Manvell

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13 years ago

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November 14th, 2009 16:00

Does Windows 7 work with the Dell Precision 670 computer?

I have a Dell Precision 670 workstation. It came with Windows xp x64. I later upgraded to Windows Vista Ultimate x64. The only problem I had at the time is the SCSI Host Controller is not recognized by Vista. I used the XP x64 drivers for the scsi controller and that worked fine. I would like to upgrade my Vista x64 to Windows 7 x64. Has anyone done so? Did it work? The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor flags the scsi HD controller as an unknown (Just as the Vista Upgrade Advisor did).

The HD Controller is a Adaptec Embedded SCSI HostRaid Controller (Ultra320). I have not been able to determine the model # of the controller.

A Micorsoft rep I discussed this with said as a general rule, if your hardware works with Vista service pack 1 you are usually good to go.

On Dell's website it lists the 690 as working with Windows 7. This is a similar workstation but I can't say for sure how similar.

 

  • 1487

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    Posted November 17th, 2009 20:00

    I saw it last night. I'll look over it.

    Dave.

  • mombodog

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    Posted November 16th, 2009 15:00

    Are you going to do a clean install or an actual in place upgrade?

     

    If you do an in place upgrade, W7 should carry the driver forward to the new installation.

    If it is a clean install and W7 cannot find the hard drive during setup, you can attempt a load the XP driver via a usb flash drive.

    It does not look like there are any Vista or W7 drivers for that controller available from Dell.

    I would use a program like Acronis, and make a full disk image of the system as it is now, that way if W7 upgrade fails for some reason, you can recover.

     

    If you could identify the adaptec chip number used by Dell, you could probably find a Vista x64 driver to use. It may be printed on the chip itself, on the motherboard,

     

     

    .

  • 1487

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    Posted November 16th, 2009 20:00

    Hello,

    From what it looks like, i do believe you can find the driver for that here.

    If you go to that link i posted above, you should be able to get drivers. I noticed that they haven't got Drivers precisely for Windows 7.

    But if your going to install Windows 7 64-Bit, you should be able to install the Windows Vista Drivers.

    Good Luck,

    Dave.

  • mombodog

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    Posted November 17th, 2009 06:00

    Hello,

    From what it looks like, i do believe you can find the driver for that here.

    If you go to that link i posted above, you should be able to get drivers. I noticed that they haven't got Drivers precisely for Windows 7.

    But if your going to install Windows 7 64-Bit, you should be able to install the Windows Vista Drivers.

    Good Luck,

    Dave.

     

     

    Dave, I don't see drivers for Embedded SCSI HostRaid Controller (Ultra320), only SAS drivers, which is a horse of a different color.

     

     

    .

  • 1487

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    Posted February 19th, 2010 07:00

    Hi, my Precision 670 is running Windows 7 ultimate successfully, my disc drives are sata running Raid 0. I backed up the settings from my Windows XP pro 64 bit onto a network share using a wizard from Microsoft site. Had a few bluescreens installing Windows 7 related to the drivers i used to support SATA interface. Also I deleted the old partitioning of the drive and let Windows 7 do it's stuff. (64 bit).

    All fine and Dandy, installed Office 2007 and ran the back up file saved before I killed XP..... all wallpapers emails and email accounts etc migrated fine.

    Very happy with the way 7 runs, though XP was stable too.

    Windows 7 is all working, all devices recognised....(other than the Cerc Sata mentioned above).(not sure which drivers I used in the end) but they did come from Dell site.

    So far it has been suspiciously painless..though about 24hrs later one of my flatscreen monitors failed.... unrelated but more money to spend, replaced now.

    Not tried any SCSI devices on it since reload but will update when I have.........

  • 1487

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    Posted April 30th, 2011 01:00

    I too have a 670 and went through with the Dell tech support which never helped me in the first place. I eventually got the drivers from Windows Update. Thats right; microsoft has the drivers.

  • mombodog

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    Posted June 1st, 2011 18:00

  • 1487

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    Posted June 1st, 2011 18:00

    I would also like to upgrade my Precision 670 from XP to Windows 7. Any tips?

  • mombodog

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    Posted June 2nd, 2011 18:00

    Is this a raid system with more than one hard drive?

    Yes, if you can create a basic partition on the same hard drive, then install W7 to that partition, W7 will install a nice bootloader automatically that will allow you to pick the OS at boot time. Or install another hard drive and Install W7 to the that drive.

    You need to look in disk management and see if you have room for another partition, you can only have 4 primary partitions on one hard drive, 40gb minimum for Windows 7, more is better. If you decide to install on the same hard drive you will have to slice off part of the largest partition you have to make space for the new partition, this requires partitioning software.

    I don't think the storage driver will be an issue, Windows 7 should install all the needed drivers during install.

    Be sure to back up all important data before you attempt any of this.

  • 375

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    Posted June 2nd, 2011 18:00

    In My Computer, it shows one Disk (C:) which is 410GB in size and has 315GB free space.

    There are at least two hard disks inside the PC.

    What are my options? Can I forget about the RAID and just use the individual hard disks? I back up to removable storage regularly, so the RAID system is not that important to me.

    On another point, XP Pro can only see 2.75GB of my 4GB installed RAM - is there any way to make it recognise any more of this RAM?