opensuse install with multiple HD
 

hi all

I am trying to install opensuse 13.1 on a dell r310 server, it has 2 500 gig hd. but when i am presented with the disk partitioning information, it can only see 1 of the 500gig disk. How do i get it to see the other 500 gig disk?

thanks guys

That depends...what kind of hard drive controller do you have? If it's a RAID controller, and it's already configured to do RAID1, then you will only see one drive. The hardware RAID controller is handling the array. Try looking at your BIOS settings to see if there are any options for setting RAID levels or JBOD in there.

In addition to the above, are you sure the second hard drive is operational? Does the BIOS list both drives?

hi guys,

no raid controllers at all. according to my idrac.
but i just found out via bios that the bay 2, where my 2nd hd is, is disabled.

so there goes that particular problem.

thanks guys

Yea!!! Simple stuff gets us all once in a while.

Amen to that. I had the exact opposite of this once...had two drives, but the system couldn't see EITHER of them. Until you went into controller BIOS, and enabled them. Not sure why someone though it would be a good idea to have drives disabled by default...but ok.....:)

I had a system a while back with a really funky BIOS. It had an on-board RAID controller and on-board VGA. I set up a RAID 1, got the system running, and then realized the on-board video was crap so I added an external video card, went into the BIOS, and disabled the on-board VGA. When I rebooted, the RAID was gone and the system wouldn't boot (no OS). I spent hours swapping drives, re-trying the OS installation, nothing would work.

It turns out that the on-board video chipset and the RAID controller were combined for some reason, so by disabling the on-board VGA, I had inadvertently disabled the RAID controller and shut off the drives. There was no indication of this in the BIOS or the manual, just one of those fun little surprises you get when building a system.