Install from alternate CD crashes when RAID 0 is setup during install

My system:
Intel Q6600
Asus P5N E SLI
2 x Cuda ES 2 apperently NOT working in raid 0
Bios version 801
OS Xubuntu 8.04 64 Bit

I have struggled with setting up RAID 0. First I tried to setup working hardware raid 0 with the onboard controller. Did not work at all with linux. Could not boot at all. I then was told to use software raid, cause that was the best thing since sliced bread and butter. I was told that compared to hw raid with onboard controller sw raid in linux would be much faster. I read up on the subject and tempted to give it a go.

I used the alternate xubuntu 8.04 64 Bit CD to make new installation and set up software raid 0.
I first watched the screencast video for raid screencasts.ubuntu.com/20070910_installing_ubuntu_part_2_968x544.html and it seemed easy.
I started out setting it up but could not complete install. After I was done with the partioning and raid configure my disks looked like this:

From what I understand it should all be correct like this and I just continued the process. It all went nice until I tried to install GRUB. It just would not install. I tried LILO as well but same result, no install of LILO either.

Here is the error message I get for GRUB:
I'll tried LILO hoping for the best but I got error from LILO also:

Could it be that GRUB do not see this raid 0, so installer does not know where to write the MBR or what it is called. Do I maybe need to do something else to get a working MBR?

Is there anything that might cause the GRUB / LILO error?

Could it be that raid 0 is impossible to boot from with Linux?
Maybe there are some hardware issues related to my motherboard? [Asus P5N E SLI]

Have anyone solved a problem like this before? Is there something that I can do manually to install GRUB / LILO ? I completed the install without and bootloader and of course now I can ot boot into OS.

There is an option to go on with installation without bootloader.

I am sure this is a good tip ;-) except I do not understand what it means or how I should boot manually. How can I solve this manually?

Searching the web I find various comments on what will work and what not. Getting really confused here.

See this:
Setting up software Raid

I am getting confuesed here. Must I really either go and buy an expensive raid controller card or go back to running Windows for having a working Raid 0?

Oh come on. Someone must have seen problems like this before?

Could I maybe use a live CD boot from CD and somehow manually create a MBR on the disks from a terminal window?

Well, your problem occurred many months ago, and by now you've probably solved it or gone around it, but I can tell you that I'm in the same fix here, although with a slightly different setup.

I am installing on a Dell 725N Power Vault with 4-300GB hdds, and configured RAID0 for maximum storage, and my server will not boot either. This is 32-bit Ubuntu, I've tried both 8.04 and 8.10 with similar results.

Being inexperienced, I just thought it should work, but apparently not.

If you've gained any insight, I'd love to hear it.

Grub can do Raid-0, LILO, as far as I know, cannot. Probably a new thread would've been appropriate, not really sure about that part...

Hmm. I wonder how that would work? The way it looks to me is that when the BIOS tries to find something to boot to, it sees nothing, as the RAID isn't there yet. Not that I have any idea what I'm talking about, mind you...

Well, firmware raid is presented by the bios as a single disk, and grub can read that and be loaded by the bios. If it's pure software raid, not using the controller, that would be a problem. As far as I know, firmware raid IS software raid except for the part where you boot up. There's no speed advantage or disadvantage either way.

Thanks -- I should have mentioned that this is "software" RAID, which means it's created by the OS rather than by a controller that would be running when BIOS is looking around for stuff. I've never even tried with Windoze, but one of my co-workers said he had W2k3 running software RAID on this box. Maybe it does some kind of partitioning automatically ... Anyhow, I'm going to try a different solution, putting the system on a small partition and then creating the RAID array for storage.

Best regards,

Eric Lester

I'm pretty sure W2k3 can do firmware RAID or software RAID; I'm pretty sure it only boots RAID 0 without firmware support if it has a separate "boot" partition NOT set up as RAID 0, which sounds like what you plan to to... Good luck.

I did successfully install the OS to a small partition on one drive, and then created a RAID0 array with all the others. When I left last night it was happily rsyncing a pile of data.

The moral of the story: One must think a little bit sometimes...