I've learned that the 2.6 kernels support the embedded Promise controller ( the pdc20376) on my motherboard (asus a7v8x). I've been stuck with windows for ever since I starting using a new raid-0 array of Western Digital Raptor drives. The speed is fantastic and I want to get back to Slackware ( my fav).

I compiled a new 2.6.0-test11 kernel with all of the support for promise and my other hardware. I added it to my customized slackware bootable install disc. The kernel boots fine and detects the promise controller, but it detects the two WD drives separately! I thought since this is hardware raid, linux would just see one contiguous drive. I can very well write to the drives indicidually or even modify the parition table without screwing the data already on the drives.

any ideas? Why won't linux see it as one parition of hardware raid-0?

Hi, I dont know how your problem could be fixed but I guess it is by now. I have the same promise 20376 controller on my nforce2 mobo and I want to install slackware-current on it. Your method seems to work and would be fine for me since I only have one hard drive. I configured and builded a 2.6.1 kernel with mm-4 patch and builded it. Then, I copied bzImage, System.map gunziped and the config file in place of another pre-compiled kernel. The bzImage loads but the system freezes when it says it is going to boot the kernel. Is there anything else I would need to copy?
Any help would be apreciated from anyone.

Hey !

Seening the drives separately is not a bug - it's a feature.
The promise 20376 (as well as the 20276) are no real Hardware RAIDS they are a combined Software/hardware solution. The organizition of the drives is still handled by the CPU. Thus it didn't make sense to write a new RAID driver for Promise since the SoftRAID of linux is already fine.

Just make identical partitions on each drive and create a SoftRAID. This is advantageous anyway since it is controller independen, meaning that a change of the controller doesn't affect access to your drive.

BassZero, could you please send me you config file at jpleve22@hotmail.com ? I tried everything that I thought made sens without any succes. Since we have basicly the same hardware your config file would work for me. If anyone else has this hardware and got it to work, could you send me you config file? I realy wanna get to slackware but Im stuck with mandrake 9.2 since its the only distro that actualy has support for the pdc 20376.
Thanks

I also followed the links to download the dirty driver to get my Kernel 2.4 RAID mirror running. If I want to upgrade to 2.6, and use the kernels software RAID, will I lose my current Mirror scheme?

The way I understand it, the BIOS sees the array as 1 disk, and so does the kernel. What changes in 2.6?

Thanks.