RAID 1 (via 8237) + mandrake? (or any linux ?)
 

having problems installing Mandrake 10 onto a new computer (used for webserving) - whenever the RAID controller is enabled (built into the motherboard) the installation dies trying to do the bootloader stuff. (locks).

Without the SATA controller enabled (installing onto a 120 gb std ata) it works good, but as soon as the SATA is enabled all hell breaks loose and nothing will boot (kernel pannic)

Mandrake 10 detects the controller, and sees two 80 gig drives (instead of a single 80 gig drive like it should, 2 disks in RAID-1)....

im a complete noob at this linux thing, but trying to learn :)
so does Mandrake 10 have support for SATA, but no support for RAID at all ?

do any of the other distro's support RAID on a VIA 8237 controller ?


thanks for any help :)

Sorry I cannot offer a solution, as I have been frustrated by a very similar problem.

I am trying to setup Mandrake 10 on a system that previously had Red Hat 9 on it, with a software RAID-1. Unfortunately, when it gets to the bootloader section, it fails to automatically determine where to put the bootloader. No matter what I seem to choose, it fails to boot (LI 99 99 99 ... ).

I hope that someone out there has some idea how to get RAID-1 to work with Mandrake 10, or I am going to have to switch to Red Hat ES :(

I have had a horrible time getting my RAID going.

I have a VIA 8237 raid controller, trying to get any distribution installed, I have tried Debian(Sarge) and all flavors of Mandrake.
I tried the drivers from VIA to no avail, they kept saying that they couldn't read the partition table.

Here is what I ended up doing...

Installed Mandrake 10 community with the SATA drives disconnected, I installed on an old IDE drive. I then upgraded using urpmi to Mandrake 10 official. Then I downloaded the newest 2.6.5 kernel and compiled it(this kernel has some support for this controller).
Then I plugged the SATA drives back in....Linux saw them as two drives reguardless of what I had the bios set at(Raid 1 or 0) so I disabled the hardware raid, and I am now in the process of setting up a software raid untill someone gets around to producing working drivers.

I am not using the VIA drivers from their website to mount the SATA drives now, I am just using the kernel support that is in 2.6.5

I gave up on software RAID and tried a hardware RAID card instead (more details in a new thread). That doesn't seem to be working either. I am beginning to wonder of Mandrake supports RAID at all...?

I am very happy to have found this site. I am having the same problem with onboard High Point RAID controller. I have been unable to get any distribution of Linux to install the bootloader. I have tried SuSE, RedHat, Mandrake, Slackware, Debian...all to no avail. i will continue to check back, and if anyone solves this, please post the solution immediately! Thanks

same problem here... i posted a detailed summary of mine in another thread...

from what i found out while looking for a solution to my problem, MDK10 should support (at least) software RAID... to do that do the following:

when install screen shows up, press F1 instead of ENTER. type "expert" and press enter. go through all the language settings, etc... but choose custom partitioning when you get to the point where you're asked about it.
create your partitions (for example "/", "swap" and "/home") but for the file system choose "Linux RAID" instead of "Journaled FS: ext3"... then you'll have to add the partitions to the RAID, etc...

it didn't help me with my problem... still freezes during setup for me... but maybe it'll work for you.

Thanks for the suggestion.....I always select expert. I have also tried selecting Linux Raid for the file system, and like you, it did not help...I still get the message that the bootloader could not be installed. Mandrake 10 is the latest distribution I have been trying to install.

I greatly appreciate your suggestion, and welcome any other suggestions.

I could never get mandrake 10 to see the sata dirves. It will load the driver, but says no drives attached. Nothing I could od would get it to work. Mandy 9.2 see's all 8, does raid 1 well too. Maybe this is or isnt a option, but try 9.2. My promise cards work wonderfull on them.

I have not been able to get Linux to install since I built this computer....that includes Mandrake 9.1 and 9.2. Always the same problem....bootloader fails to install.

@xodustrance:

mdk 9.2 worked with the SATA drives for you? i could try that... i still have 9.2 lying around somewhere. but from what i've heard, mdk 9.2 isn't very stable... on the other hand, mkd 10.0 doesn't seem to be much better...

For raid in Linux it's best to use linux's software raid or
"real" raid-cards (PATA/SATA/SCSI), but not "trick bios"-cards.
Most cheap "raid" cards are these "trick bios" cards which don't
have ASIC (application spesific IC) to do the raid calculations and
thus they demand spesific OS support / drivers. This complicates
things too much and it's not "genuine" raid (still uses CPU instead
of raid card for raid operations!). And there's bonus: You can
get raid 5 instead of regular raid 0/1 on motherboards / cheap
raid-cards.

I can recommend 3ware.
I have used one of their 4-channel ATA-cards and it was easy
to install - worked "out-of-the-box" with RedHat... I think it was
7.3 or 8.0. So it doesn't require any proprietary drivers.

Do your googling with terms:
"trick bios" asic

Hope this helps someone! I had to learn it the hard way.

Hmm, seems like that is why Windows XP is the operating system most used in the world.

Windows doesn't have an issue with my VIA raid chipset and I can't see why linux is not all over this specific chipset. It beats most other raid solutions hands down.