[Mandrake 9.1] Installing using Fasttrak100 troubles
 

I've got 19Gb unallocated on my 2x60Gb RAID0 config on a Promise Fasttrak100. I already got Windows XP running. I thought, hey let's put linux on the 19Gb unallocated.

But I can't get it to work. I've got the 3CD version, from the internet. Burned them to cds and booted from cd1. I get the screen where you can press F1 for more options or press Enter for normal install. When I press enter and I get to the SCSI/disk adapter install page it can't find my RAID controller. Both "ataraid" and "pdcraid" work. Now setup can't find my harddiskdrives and won't install :( (You can click "ataraid" for example, it asks if I have more controllers, which I don't so I click no and it gives an error about not finding my controller/hd's and stuff)

I already tried running the setup pressing F1 and typing:
"linux ide2=0x1c00,0xb002,10 ide3=0x1400,0xb802,10 ide4=0 ide5=0 ide6=0 ide7=0 ide8=0 ide9=0 expert" at the "boot: " prompt. (The ide2 and ide3 "parameters" (I think they are called) I got from using the rescue isntall and typing "cat proc/pci | less")

ide0 and ide1 are both enabled in bios and detected. ide2 and ide3 are the two RAID ide. Each ide with one HD(master). When I run the setup with the this code I can see the booting finds my HD's, before entering setup.
But if I run the setup with the above code it gives me an error before actually ENTERING the setup: install exited abnormally :-( -- received signal 11.

Anybody knows how I can get setup to find my HD's and RAID controller correctly?

PS: English is not my native language ;)

Maybe this can help:
2x IBM Desktar 120GXP 60GB
AMD AthlonXP 2200+
Epox 8k3a+
2x 256Mb Samsung/Samsung PC2700 DDR
Promise Fasttrak100
Connect3d Radeon9700Pro

Did you get the driver from promise? I think they only have a version 9.0 mandrake driver, but that probably will work, or you can try using the source file. There is a full description on their site about how to install it. For cheap systems, I use plain old ide controllers and setup software raid. The performance is about the same (as fasttrack) and reliance on a single card is no longer an issue, if it goes, plug the drives into the onboard IDE or go out and pick up any other ide controller, plug it in and your back in business. Adaptec's true IDE raid controllers are much better/faster/supported than the promise "fake" controllers.

If you install LM 9.0 and have the FastTrak.o driver on a ext-2 formatted floppy, you can use expert install and install the driver in the first step. However, I believe you will have to make sure the driver is included in the initrd file before you can boot up from the hard drive and not a boot disk. There is a problem with the driver installing under LM 9.1 due to symbol mismatches. I've had to have linux 9.1 installed on a separate non-raid drive to boot up, but I am able to use partitions on the raid drives. I hope I'm not too far off. My computer has onboard PDC 20267 controller.

Promise doesn't support mandrake, not just now. I've downloaded the RedHat drivers and the OpenSource (OpenLinux 3.1 something like that?) drivers.

I've succesfully installed Mandrake on an old 2gb harddrive... IT was rather slow. Maybe I'll grab another harddisk where I put Mandrake on.

I'm trying to run the setup with the "linux ide2 ide3 expert" etc code, and using the drivers from Promise. But how do I format a floppy to ext2fs and how can I put the promise driver files on that floppy? Windows can't ... SuperFormat isn't working properly.