Installing OpenSuse10.3 on DellPE700 with PromiseFastrack S150 SX-4
 

Hello -

I am trying to setup OpenSuse Linux 10.3 so I can do some experiments with it and later use it to host a small website.

I have 3 80 gig SATA harddrives connected to a promise fasttrack s150 sx4 raid controller. I created an array in the controller's setup.

When the system goes through startup it shows 2+1 RAID 5 array.

the linux cd then boots up i tell it installation, i hit escape to watch the text go by. At one point it appears to load the promise driver, and it just sits there for about 5 minutes. IT then goes into the gui setup and it later says no harddrives are found.

Any suggestions?

I also had a suselinux 10.0 disc (came with a book im using ) it detects the hard drive, but it doesnt seem to reognize that it is a raid 5 setup (it only wanted to format 73 gigs)(when there should be about twice that)


any ideas? I'd like to get this going and im stuck!

thanks,

ed

Just a side note, 2+1 is an odd designation for RAID 5 .. 2+1 sounds more like a Raid 1 with a hot spare to me (at which point 73 GB would be about the right formatted size..), since RAID 5 requires a minimum of 3 drives.


It sounds like your Suse 10.3 isn't loading the driver module sata_sx4 for the controller.

do you have an opportunity to switch to a virtual console and modprobe that driver before the setup starts disk detection ?

when the graphical screen saying welcome appeared, I hit escape to watch watch happens, it appears to recognize the raid card and tries to load it up, but it just sits there for a good couple of minutes and then continues on it goesback to the gui install and it says no harddrives present.

i did get to a text screen where i could load drives but it said the one for this controller was already present.

can you step me through what i need to do?

ed

also i do have 3 hard drives in there..
they are all 80 gig seagates two are brand new and the other is the existing one that came with the computer?

the fasttrack startup screen (bootup) says 2+1 and over 140+ gigs of space (i cant recall the exact number)
I thought the same thing as well that 2+1 sounded odd, but the total next to it adds up.

ed