LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] REQ: Help with Intel 82801 raid setup

Hi all!

Hope someone can help me with this, since I've searched my @#s off in google without any luck...

I've got a Asus P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard, and on it is an Intel 82801 ER [ICH5] SATA RAID controller.
I've already configured a raid array with 2xRaptor 36GB discs, and installed XP on a NTFS partition.
But now comes the problem: How do I configure an existing array to be found by linux?

I just want access to the NTFS partition on the array at first.
(The partition with the page file crashed, and now I can't start XP, even in safemode.... ARGH I'm so fed up with pathetic Windows XP, I have no idea why they call it an Operating System when it's not operating at all!!)

Later I want Linux on it as well, so if you happen to know how to boot and install linux from a raid partition, please fill me in on that as well...

I've tried to configure dmraid, but I'm currently working on a Knoppix live cd, so I have some lib related errors when I compile from source...

But from what I gather, the 82801 ER is a software raid controller, operating from it's own bios. So I thought I could use the raidtab to set it up. But alas that is a partition based setup (i.e. uses /dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1 to setup a striped partition) when I want a device based setup (i.e. /dev/sda and /dev/sdb).

I have two HDs, /dev/sda and /dev/sdb, and if I use fdisk, I can actually see that there IS a partition on sda, but I can't see anything on sdb... So if I use raidtab, I would need to see a partition on sdb as well...

Hope someone can make some sense out of this!
Cheers,
TylerD75