View Full Version : Dual boot RAID
Boomerang
11-12-01, 07:27 PM
I have an interesting problem. I have an Abit KT7A-RAID, and two 20 gig HDs in a raid 0 chain. I've been running win98SE, but last time I formatted, I created myself a partition to run Linux in. However, upon attempting to install Redhat 7.2, I began to encounter problems. Redhat says I don't have a HD. I have some drivers, but they're not very helpful. So, having had no luck with Redhat, I promptly downloaded and burned myself a copy of Mandrake 8.2. It found my HDs, but refused to recognize them as a single raid 0 chain. So, does anybody have any idea how I can go about making my system dual boot off of my raid chain? Any help whatsoever would be useful. Thanks.
Stephen
The first step is to find drivers for your raid controller that also actually support raid.
If you can't find those, you won't be able to boot off of it.
Otherwise, you could set aside a non-raided partition someplace to boot Linux from, but it probably still won't recognize the raid.
The reason for this is that almost all of the ide raid controllers a pseudo-software controlled.
Linux bypasses the bios for its disk access, so you would need a raid controller that actually represented the raid array as a single disk at the hardware level, which the Promise and Highpoint cards do not do.
Here are the drivers for the highpoint raid controller. I don't know if they work or not but it can't hurt to try. http://www.highpoint-tech.com/370drivers_linux.htm
I'm pretty sure those drivers won't access arrays, just the disks on them.
Might as well try them out, although you won't be able to use them with the installer unless you put out alot of effort.
So, you'd still have to install to a non-raid partition.
Boomerang
11-13-01, 07:04 PM
Originally posted by Shep
Here are the drivers for the highpoint raid controller. I don't know if they work or not but it can't hurt to try. http://www.highpoint-tech.com/370drivers_linux.htm
Tried them. they didn't work. Oh well. Thanks for the suggestion though.
i also have this same problem with suse 7.3 on my abit th7-raid mobo..it installs and partitions everything just fine, but it refuses to boot up after that...i emailed suse tech support about it and i will post their answer here when i recieve one..hopefully with an answer for both of us :)
Originally posted by XWRed1
I'm pretty sure those drivers won't access arrays, just the disks on them.
Might as well try them out, although you won't be able to use them with the installer unless you put out alot of effort.
So, you'd still have to install to a non-raid partition.
If you read the readme in the file it tells you how to make a boot disk so you can install to an array, it also says you need hipoint bios 2.1 for them to work.
Ah, ok.
Well, I didn't bother to read the readme because I'm not the one with the raid controller :D
That wasn't directed at you just an FYI for everybody
Boomerang
11-14-01, 02:30 PM
Originally posted by Shep
If you read the readme in the file it tells you how to make a boot disk so you can install to an array, it also says you need hipoint bios 2.1 for them to work.
Aye, there's the rub. You see, highpoint bios 2.1 is only available on the highpoint raid card. In my case, my raid bios comes with my motherboard bios. The onboard raid controller (highpoint 370) is currently up to version 1.11.0402 as of yesterday (13th) morning. I can't possibly have highpoint bios version 2.1. It's all very confusing/annoying. Currently, I'm looking into obtaining another HD just to put linux on and re-partitioning my raid chain out to it's full 40 gigs for Windows. Well, anybody with any ideas, please voice them. Just so long as it dosn't involve any live chickens. :)
My BP6 has an onboard Highpoint non-raid IDE controller, and I was able to update its bios completely separate from my motherboard's bios.
Are you sure you can't update your bios?
It is very confusing I looked at the highpoint site and trhe newest bios they have listed is 2.09 and it says the highpoint bios has to be upgraded with a motherboard flash. I wonder if we can find somebody that can modify a bios and out the newest bios for the raid controller in it. I know it can be done that is how version 1.11 first made it into a bios flash, but I don't have the knowledge to do it.
ok here is the respose i got from suse support for this issue, it appears there is a driver for our boards for this...
Your enquiry goes slightly beyond the scope of Installation Support.
This support is intended primarily as a help to get a basic system up
and running. (see appendix A of the installation manual. Page V in your
configuration manual in SuSE Linux 7.2). We hope you will understand
that advanced topics such as the one your question involves cannot be
answered in full detail.
You find the following article about that in our support
database http://sdb.suse.de/en/ with the keyword "raid".
Title: IDE RAID Controller with Linux
http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/ide_raid.html
__________________________________________________ _____
Symptom:
You have a PC with an IDE RAID controller. During the
installation, only the single hard drives instead of the
whole RAID are recognized.
Cause:
The RAID functionality of your controller is presently not
supported by Linux. Many IDE RAID controllers get their
functionality through the driver. For those devices, it is a
sort of software RAID.
Solution:
There are already drivers available for some of these
controllers. Withouth the corresponding driver, hard drives
connected to it can only be used separately and not as a
group. From SuSE Linux 7.3 on, some of these controllers are
automatically detected and can be fully utilized as RAID
controllers. On the other hand, previously configured RAID
volumes cannot be used!
3ware IDE RAID controllers are completely supported on
SuSE Linux 7.1 or higher.
Regarding Promise FastTrack66 and FastTrack100 controllers,
a driver for SuSE Linux 7.1 or higher is available at the
following URL:
http://support.promise.com/Linux/Default.htm
Unfortunately, Promise is not prepared to publish this
driver's source code. For this reason we are unable to
support this driver, which is not included in the
distribution. Should you have any questions concerning this
driver, please refer directly to Promise.
RAID is also currently supported only by those devices based
on Highpoint HPT370, such as Dawicontrol DC-100 RAID and
mainboards Abit KT-7 RAID. The drivers can be found at:
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/370drivers_linux.htm
Support for these drivers is also provided by the
manufacturer (i.e. Highpoint) only.
At the following page, you can find information from the IDE
kernel developer Andre Hedrick regarding the supported IDE
chipsets.
http://www.linux-ide.org/chipsets.html.
Tips for booting hard drives on additional IDE controllers
Please notice that changes in the file
/etc/lilo.conf are necessary if you want to boot hard drives connected to
additional IDE controllers.
Please add the following entry in the Global Section if you
want to boot from hde and do not have other hard drives on
the first controllers.
disk=/dev/hde
bios=0x80 If you use a second hard drive as master on the second
controller add
disk=/dev/hdg
bios=0x81 After that you need to execute
lilo as user root. If you have a so-called mixed system, please
have a look at the "Boot: (E)IDE and SCSI" article. There
you will find some informations about how to use the
lilo -v -v -v command to find out what bios numbers LILO wants to have
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