Trying to install Mandrake 10 on a RAID-1 that was created using the Adaptec RAID ATA 1200A pci card out of two 80GB Maxtor drives. The RAID setup seems to work fine in the Adaptec bios, but the drives show up as 2 separate drives during the Mandrake 10 installation (hde & hdg).

Is this normal behavior for RAID-1 on Mandrake? I would think that it should show up as only 1 drive. How do I make this work?

the adabtec 1200A appears to be a "fake" raid controller consisting only of an ata controller with a bios. the hardware responsible for the raid function seems to be missing. therefore, linux sees right through the bios detecting the single hard drives.

most of the cheaper so called raid controllers, sata as well as pata, appear to be this kind of semi raid controllers where software is handling the raid functionality. i experienced this with cmd, sis, via, promise, adapdec both pci and on board controllers.

if you are lucky a software functionality is included in the kernel (ATA/IDE, support for ide raid controllers in the 2.4 kernel) but its at this time experimental and never worked for me so far. this type of software functionality should not be mistaken with the "real" softare raid, also called multible devices driver support.

rarely there is a source code for drivers on the web which can be compiled and included during setup. raid utility software is also hard to find.

i can give a short introduction how to get a via "raid" controller to work.
download the latest drivers from viaarena.com.
compile the modules for the kernel of the corresponding setup CD and put it on floppy. when installing linux switch to console just before choosing to manually partition the device. mount the floppy and ismod the raid module. mknod a /dev/sda device if absent. this worked for 64 bit redhat fedora 1 and a via vt8237 sata raid controller. be aware to recompile the module for whatever kernel you want to use later on. load it at boot-time if root is on that raid. i strongly recommend grub. btw: scsi support is needed as well (sata). you may need a mkinitrd --preload=via_raid_module. but be aware, the performance is worse than bad, at least in my case where a (hdparm -tT) 60mb/s single drive had only 10mb/s as "hardware" raid 0 with two of those disks.

conclusion: in your case you may want to use software raid.

please correct me if i'm mistaken. i like to improve my knowledge as well.

I am experiencing the same situation with the RAID-1 implementation. 1200a controller 2 80GB drives, shows up as 2 devices. According to the hardware database at mandrake this controller is supported already in Mandrake 10.0, so I shouldn't have to rebuild/recompile anything. Just wondering if this is the standard behavior or not, or if there is something else special to do.

I have this card working with the 9.2 version of linux Mandrake, but cannot get 10.0 to recognise it I'm busy checking with the author of the drivers if kernel 2.6 (in 10.0 Mandrake) supports this chipset.

The route to getting it working is slightly convoulted. Boot off the Mandrake Install CD, then use CTRL-ALT ?F2 (might be F3 I forget to switch to command screen once booted. you need to modprobe ext3 and modprobe hptraid (and maybe ataraid), then CTRL-ALT-F7 back to the graphical screen - should make the drive show up at ATARAID /d0

I'm sorry I'm a bit hazy on the details -did it last december, but I think I posted in the bugzilla exactly how I did it.

I've just had a nasty brush with 10.0 (nearly lost everything) and am sticking with 9.2 for now. You may find it useful to have a 3rd drive around with an install on it to use as a backup to boot from.

Hi,

I have successfully installed the hpt drivers for my Adaptec ATA 1200A raid controller. I have also installed the frontend for the raid controller.

Now the frontend is able to do many things including creating an array. My question is: can I use this program to start mirroring the current hard drive without destroiyng data?

I have 2 harddrives of the same size and one has linux installed and the other is empty. How can I start mirroring the one disk onto the other without doing an re-install. This is a live, in-use server.

Thanks
Nic

I'd be very tempted to use the bios level software to build the mirror. personally I build the mirror and then installed the OS onto it. I would not do anything with a server that you cannot loose as although in theory it should be OK. I would be very very warey of loosing stuff.

Regards