Hi all folks,

How to make RH9.0 recognize RAID Controller
===================================

New installation RH9.0 on a RAID-0 box
Partition-1 (Drive-C in Windows) running Win2K
Partition-2 (Drive-D in Windows) empty without formatting

Test as follows;
After booting up with RH9.0 CD#1
Seleting "Manual partition"
Showing up only 2 drives, hda and hdc not as an entire drive of total capacity 80G (each HD has 40G capacity) as in Win environment. I can only choose either hda or hdc to proceed

This is an old RAID-0 box for test purpose
RAID controller
Z-Cyber Speedway 133 + RAID

During booting the motherboard detects the RAID controller

Win98 and Win2K have been running on this box without problem. Before I also have installed only RH9.0 on it. It ran without problem but I did not recognize whether the RAID controller has been detected. I chose "Automatically partition" Sorry I could not recall exactly.

Kindly advise how to make the RAID controller detected by RH9.0. I have its floppy for installing Win driver but not Linux

Any suggestion? Thanks in advance.

B.R.
satimis

Hi,

The OS doesn't know anything about your raid-controller, it should do it's buissiness before...

Could it be that you have created two "containers" in your raid-configuration? If you have they will show in linux as two different disks...

//jonas

Hi jonas_larson,

Thanks for your response.

I agree with you at booting the BIOS should detect the RAID controller. In fact it does as I read from the screen. RAID-0 starts.

Please let me telling you the complete story here;

1) This RAID-0 box is for test purpose. I have installed/run Win98 and Win2k on it without problem. The entire hard-drive displayed was about 80G storage capacity (2 x 40G). Also I have solely installed RH9.0 on it before and it ran quite smooth. I used "Automatic partitioning" during installation. While running RH9.0 I could not recall whether it showed up as an entirre hard-drive of 80G storage capactity.

2) Now this time I used Win98 boot disk to partition the hard-drives into 2 partitions of approx. 30G and 50G respecting. Win2K was installed on partition-1, 30G (Windows-DriveC, FAT32) leaving the 50G partition-2 (Windows-DriveD) untouched without formatting. After running Win2K several days. I started to test-install RH 9.0 using "Automatically partition" first. I could not see Win2K partition, only showing 2 drives, hda and hdc therefore I canelled installation and rebooted the box. During seond time test-installation I used "Manually partition", but still I oculd not see Win2K partition, also showing 2 drives, hda and hdc.

Could you please explain further about your question;
"Could it be that you have created two "containers" in your raid-configuration?"

Thanks in advance.

B.R.
satimis

If you have a raid-controller that you can "break at boot time" and log into to create your raid-set (but id doesn't sound like it) you can create "containers" = hard-disks to the OS...

But maybe Linux doesn't recognize your raid-controller at all and just sees your IDE drives... (don't know how well Linux works with IDE-Raid cards...)

//jonas

Hi jonas,

You are correct. RH9.0 does not see the RAID controller. I need to use the Silicon Image chipset support and SI Medley RAID support in a recent 2.4.* kernel. Possibly I need to compile a custom kernel before I can access the RAID array. The RAID part of things is done in the driver, and the RedHat kernel appears not to be using the ataraid driver.

However I face another problem. When to recompile the kernel, before installation of RH9.0 or after installation? If recompiling the kernel after installation, RH 9.0 will be installed on the 1st hard drive (the hard drive connected to the 1st slot of the controller as master) leaving the 2nd hard drive empty (hard drive connected to the 2nd slot as master). I have no knowledge to compile the kernel before installing RH 9.0

I am still searching for information..

B.R.
satimis

I suppose there is a driver you can load before the installation, or rather if you choose "expert" installation...

Look for the driver of the Raid-card and you should be fine...

Regards

Jonas

Hi Jonas,

No driver for z-cyber RAID controller is available for Linux.

Following is the advice obtained from other postings

- Quote -

<Answer to satimis' question>
You may need to compile a custom kernel before you can access the RAID array. The RAID part of things is done in the driver, and the RedHat kernel appears to not be using the ataraid driver.

<Question from satimis>
One thing I could not resolve. When to recompile the kernel, before installation of RH9.0 or after installation? If recompiling the kernel after installation, RH 9.0 will be installed on the 1st hard drive (the hard drive connected to the 1st slot of the controller as master) leaving the 2nd hard drive empty (hard drive connected to the 2nd slot as master). I have no knowledge to compile the kernel before installation of RH 9.0

<Answer to satimis' question>
That's the problem all of us face. It's a 'chicken and egg' problem. What I do, is get out one of my spare 'junk' hard disks that I keep for this purpose... Old, slow, and just barely big enough to hold a basic Linux install. I install onto the junk hard disk, then compile a fresh kernel, with ataraid built in. Then I boot that kernel and partition/format the RAID, then copy the whole install off the old disk and onto the RAID array. It's not easy, and it can be a lot of work, but it seems to be the easiest way to get the job done.

A shameless plug: Gentoo Linux has ataraid built into the boot CD's kernel. It's rather simple to get Gentoo running on an ataraid, and very easy to check and see if ataraid will talk to your particular chip/card/array, before spending a lot of time installing (You can check right from the boot CD, no install needed!). On the other hand, unfortunately, Gentoo is not quite as newbie-friendly as a nice graphical RedHat or SuSE install is.

- Unquoted -

Now I have the Gentoo CDs available and am preparing to have a go. However before start I will listen to Mandrake and Suse lists to see whether these OSs can see my RAID controller. If they do I prefer the easy way. Installation of Gentoo is completely different to other distro.

I will keep you informed later

B.R.
satimis