RAID Install Help on Ubuntu
 

OK guys - I download the Kubuntu "Alternative CD" ISO so I can do a simple RAID1 configuration on my two Western Digital S-ATA 160 GB drives. I have done this on my Debian Etch install so I would assume its the same on Ubuntu/Kubuntu.

Here is how I am setting up my partitions:

/dev/sda

- dev/sda1 = 512 MB swap space
- dev/sda2 = 159.4 GB - volume for RAID (bootable)

/dev/sdb

- dev/sdb1 = 512 MB swap space
- dev/sdb2 = 159.4 GB - volume for RAID (bootable)

Now I will configure "software RAID"

/dev/md0 = 159.4 GB - ext3 - mount point = /

Now as I install the OS on RAID1 partition I created, the install goes fine and it then prompts me to reboot. I remove the disk and reboot the machine and then when Grub loads, it then gives me "error 17" and indicates that it can not load the partition.

I have no idea why or what I have done wrong. Can someone please look at this and let me know what you think or what I should modify.

- Carlos :scratch:

Post the GRUB entry if you can.

How do I obtain the Grub entry? When I boot, I see the grub menu load in quiet mode but I press escape and can see the kernel options and memtest86 and both the regular kernel, recovery, and memtest86 all get the same Grub 17 error.

After you've pressed escape and you are in the full menu, I think you press e on the entry you want to view. I'm basically looking to see what the exact options are for the boot entry.

I tried a quick reinstall of the OS on my machine still using the two identical S-ATA 160GB drives. This time I the same things as above except I created an extra partition on each drive making it a total of 3 primary partions per disk so /boot where "Grub" is stored would not be a part of the RAID. The partition looks something like this now:

/dev/sda

- dev/sda1 = 512 MB swap space
- dev/sda2 = 1024 MB Ext3 mounted to /boot (bootable enabled)
- dev/sda3 = 158.6 GB RAID Partition

/dev/sdb

- dev/sdb1 = 512 MB swap space
- dev/sdb2 = 1024 MB Ext3 not mounted or used in FSTAB
- dev/sdb3 = 158.6 GB RAID Partition

/dev/md0 = 158.6 GB Ext mounted to /

Now as above the system booted fine and here is what I found in /proc/mdstat

It appears to be syncing the two devices but none the less both disk show up status and I think I have a functioning RAID1 setup, no?

Do you know why it could not load Grub if I added /boot into the RAID1 /dev/md0 partition?

I'm no expert on mdadm, but that looks good to me. You can get even more detail on the array by using mdadm --detail /dev/mdX.

As for the boot partition, I honestly don't know. I've set up systems with RAID layouts just like you are using and I'm 99% positive that the boot partition was under /, not on a separate partition. And they have worked just fine. That was with CentOS though.

Thanks for your support again! Everything appears to be working then...

The /boot partition cannot be a part of a booting software RAID because the array isn't seen by grub. The one exception is when using FakeRaid, because the BIOS makes the array visible during boot.