esamatti,

If I understand correctly, you are saying that linux has no trouble with detecting and using the HPT controller other than to utilize it's RAID feature? Is this true for you? I have had nothing but problems - but having so far only tried Redhat I wouldn't know about the other distro's.

I should be getting slackware today in the mail and will be fiddling with it this weekend. I'll post the results - hopefully, I'll be writing from a working linux box

Unfortunately, I have only one drive that is capable of taking advantage of the faster bus so unless I can test the RAID feature using a old ATA/66/33 drive I wont be able to shed much light on that for you.

Redhat did detect the drive as /dev/sda during the partitioning section of install. It's just too bad I couldn't figure out how to get RH to make use of it.

Also, I used the driver disk and boot image from the Highpoint tech site. As far as I know, I followed the instructions exactly. It installed ok then but when it came time to reboot it would lock up somewhere along the way before the login prompt with a bunch of unresolved references (if I remember correctly). Maybe the problem is with the way I partitioned my drive - it did complain about that suggesting that I should make a boot disk but I can't boot from the floppy either. I tried manually partitioning the free space on the drive using druid first then I tried fdisk, neither would allow me to create more than 2 or 3 partitions out of nearly 4 gig of free space. I also allowed it to automatically partition and it still complained about the scheme it chose.

The free space is the result of splitting the first 10 gig partition of the drive using fips leaving the first resulting partition to windows and intending to install linux in the subsequent area. BTW, the free space is below the 1024 limit but because I could not create as many partitions as I wanted, I couldn't get the entirity of the bootable partition to reside within that range and I'm not sure if that matters.

Yeah exatly. Out of the box no problems detecting the HPT controller as a regular ATA100 controller.

However, since you are wanting to run RedHat 7.2 you should have no problems at all using the boot and DD disks from http://www.highpoint-tech.com/RedHat_v13_370_372.zip .

There is one step that is often missed. Even if you use the the highpoint installation boot floppy, and the driver disk, during the install the installer copies the kernel from the CD to the hard drive. This kernel has support for the HPT controller as a regular IDE controller, so this means the drivers won't workwhen it come back up. So you have to follow this step...

"(HPT370/372 only) If you are installing Red Hat Linux 7.1/7.2 onto hard disk(s) attached to HPT370 or HPT372, when “Installation Complete” dialog appears, an additional step must be taken to replace the installed kernel with our new kernel, which has HPT366 IDE support removed. On the driver disk, there is a setup script "postinstall" which will do this work for you. When the "Installation Complete" dialog appears, DO NOT press ENTER.

Press Alt-F2 to activate the command shell

and type in the following commands:

for Red Hat Linux 7.2
# chroot /mnt/sysimage
# mkdir /mnt/floppy
# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
# sh /mnt/floppy/postinstall
# umount /mnt

Then press Alt-F1 to return to the setup screen and press ENTER to finish setup." -- Install_RedHat_HPT37x2.pdf

I have installed RedHat 7.2 with no problems at all and it should work.

The RAID features should work just fine with ATA33/66/100 drives. If you have a 10 Gig and a 8 Gig and you implement RAID 0 (striping) then the volume will be as big as the smallest drive times 2. So, in this case 16 Gig volume. if you have a bunch of drives of different sizes you might consider using the Span option in the RAID bios. This uses all the space to make a big drive but there is no redundancy or performance benefit.

My problem is I need to install RedHat 7.3 and I can't figure out how to make the installer kernel small enough to fit on a floppy and have everything it needs for the installer with HPT support disabled. Also I have made the replacement kernel but I think it's missing a bunch of stuff. The source code from HighPoint's website has documentation about how to make the drivers and how to install them on an existing system, but now how to make the installation floppies.

Oh, and about the partition and the 1024 range. My experience has been with modern system BIOSes that I have had no problems no matter where the boot partition is. With RedHat I think you have to be in Expert mode for it to allow you to do it anyway.

I think it will complain no matter what hehe, but just ignore it.

So, if I understand you correctly, you have the first part of the drive (6 Gigs or so?) with Windows installed on it?

That's cool, I do that too. In fact it works best if you install Windows frist like that and leave some space in the back for Linux.

Check during the install if it is trying to use pramary partitions or extended partitions for the linux install. That may be while you are limited to no more than 2 or 3 partitions in linux since you can have no more than 4 primary partitions. So, you must use extended partitions. atleast one of those primary partitions must be extended partition and then you can set up a bunch of logical partitions in it.

For instance, I have 2 30 gig drives in RAID 0 (60 GB total). Windows is taking up 40 Gigs at the beginning of the volume. During RedHat installation I manually add a 32MB primary partition and mount it to /boot. Then I make a 1 gig primary swap partition (since I have 512MB ram). Then with all the other partitions I make extended logical partitions, but I sometimes just make one big partition for to mount as /.

/dev/sda1 Windows 40GB
/dev/sda2 ext3 /boot 32MB
/dev/sda3 Linux Swap 1024MB
/dev/sda4 extended partition (all remaning space)
/dev/sda5 Logical ext3 / (all remaining space)

or something like that. the bootloader gets installed in /dev/hda (Master Boot Record)

oops I mean /dev/sda for the MBR not /dev/hda

Yes, I originally had my 20 gig drive partitioned into 2 partitions. I used fips to split the first partition into 6.1 gig and 3.9 gig partitions. That worked beautifully - fips is great I was glad I didn't have to reinstall everything.

I did not forget the step of replacing the kernel with the hpt replacement, in fact I tried as per the instructions after the install complete dialog but also, not sure if the hpt sh program modifies the existing kernel or whether it copies a new one from floppy, I also ran it before the X configuration of the install.... I'm finding it hard to explain this coherently :P .... but in any case, no matter how I tried to do it, it would not reboot and get to a login prompt successfully.

It would always lock up with unresolved references, unable to mount filesystem on (don't remember all the specific errors)... I've flashed my BIOS with the most recent offering from abit so I don't think that is the problem.

I just got slackware and spent about 45 minutes this afternoon trying to install it on 2 computers. Preliminary results - did not detect drive attached to hpt controller so no available drives on this system to install to. The other computer has redhat installed only does not support the graphics card and for some reason, I could not boot from the CD on that one now.... I'm not even going to get into that yet.... with that computer, I am going to try to figure out how to install and setup the vesa driver. At least on that computer rh runs even if it is without the Xwindow system at least it runs

.... gonna be late for work :P hehe

TGIF

I was just reading my Motherboard manual. It was there that I discovered Gentus Linux from Abit.

http://www.linuxcentral.com/catalog/...=wJKNboawN1yFw

I think I'll give this a shot.

OK...here goes.

SuSE 8.0 Professional
Hardware of concern...

ABIT KX7-333R (onboard HPT372)
4x 60GB ATA-133 Maxtor IDE

Downloaded the source from highpoint-tech website and followed directions verbatim. When I inserted the module (hpt37x2.0) I received a warning that said it would taint the kernel: no license. However it shows up with a lsmod. When I opened YaST2 to build the array the drives showed up as /dev/hde, hdf, hdg, hdh. Then the scsi emulation appeared. /dev/sda, sdb, sdc, sdd which I selected for the RAID array. Built and mounted to /home. It is running. However, I have not stress tested yet. I will post more information and working on a howto.

Anyone else with anymore info?

email me justin@ctdatasys.com

Machine:
CPU - AMD XP 2000
MB - EPOX 8k3A+ (on board HPT372)
HD- (2) ATA-133 40 GB HD (on each channel)


I have downloaded the linux open-source driver for the HPT372, compiled them on another machine running SusE 8.0 and modified the initrd file on the install floppy disk.

With the modified SuSE install disk I am able to boot the kernel, load the HPT372 driver (under unknown modules), and install a basic SuSE image (with kernel 2-4-18 source) on one of the 40GB HD (/dev/sda).

The next step has been to try to recompile the 2.4.18 source with the HPT34x and the HPT366 DEVID's removed from /usr/src/linux/drivers/ide/ide-pci.c file.

While I am able to 'make modules'

I get a unresolved symbols ( in idedrivers.o ?) for the HPT362, then subsequent error for the HPT34x & HPT 366 when I 'make bzImage'.

To further compound the issue, the machine will just lock up for no apparent reason (no kernel panic notice) which then buys us a reboot and fsck ( all partitions are made ext2, because the installer would lockup on ext3 or reiserfs).


If you have any commnents or ideas please return a reply

Thank you,

John

Hi there,

As all of you I have sended SuseSupport an email asking for a boot disk without success. Does someone have a solution to install Suse 7.2-7.3 or 8.0 on Abit KR7A-133 RAID? if yes send me more info: nicholas@ef-x.it

John,
Don't go into the ide-pci.c file and remove the pointers. Ensure you are in runlevel 1. Just do a make menuconfig and remove the support in there for the 34x and 366. Make dep, make modules, make bzimage, make install, then mkinitrd. After you have done that reboot using your new kernel image and compile the drivers from source. Then do an insmod. It will tell you that it will taint the kernel but don't worry. If you open up YaST, it should now show scsi emulation and the drives will show as /dev/sda, /dev/sdb....

If this works then place the driver here:
/lib/modules/2.4.18-4GB/kernel/drivers/ide/hpt37x2.o

Also, put it in the modules.conf file.

Rebuild the kernel again. This time ensure that you insert the new driver. When it is back up and running build the array and it should work. This is exactly what I did and I have a fully functional array under SuSE 8.0 Pro with the 2.4.18 kernel. I have the Abit KX7-333R with the HPT372.

You can email me at justin@ctdatasys.com for any questions. It's been about three weeks now..so I may have to retrace my steps...but she's working!

I've build bootdisk's for SuSE 8




look under http://go.to/skrid

Have a lot of fun

Sorry for the incomplete site, now it runs

Skrid,
What is compiled in the kernel image?

Hello,

I noticed that some of you use SuSE 8.0.
I also want to use SuSE 8.0 on an Epox 4G4A+ with HPT 372 RAID Controller (RAID 1). I downloaded the Opensource-Driver from Highpoints Website but I don´t have a running Linux-System to compile it. So my question is if anyone would compile the driver under SuSE 8.0 for me.

I only need the compiled hpt37x2.o file. Please help me...

jhcook:
I'd used the original Kernel just without the HPT34x & 366 Driver under IDE ATA ...

dragsta:
just download hptraid.o.gz from my site, it's the hpt37x2.o driver wich runs under suse 8.0