[Herts] Newbie with Boot Hassle - Can anyone help?

[Jonathan Dye]

geoff_pitt@ntlworld.com wrote:
> Hi Dom
> 
> Thanks for your interest/advice. Post exact details here?
> Hope it's OK to reply off list and don't want to clutter
> inboxes uninvited as I'm not sure of the type of content to
> expect as I've not yet seen any! SYMBOL 74 \f "Wingdings" \s 12.
> 
> RAID is based on Promise PDC20276 chip on my MOBO and
> consists of two Maxtor ATA 133 HDDs as RAID0 striped.  But
> I've had two responses (accidentally sent the same message
> when swapping drives etc. in frustration) the from SuSE
> support saying they won't support it (they may think I'm
> running a commercial server?) however the distro claims to be
> "Professional"  they did however give some tips when
> replying.  One of which was that GRUB wouldn't work 'cos I'd
> seen about it in their literature and asked the question with my
> support request. 

AFAIK the Promise PDC20276 is a part hardware part software raid setup
because it needs some software drivers to support it.  Linux does have these
drivers but you won't be able to boot from the device as the drivers need to
be loaded before linux can access the drive.  You best option is probably to
make a small (15MB) /boot partition that is not part of the raid array and
make sure your kernel has the relevant drivers built it (which it probably
does).  Then linux will be able to boot from the boot partition and load the
raid drivers before mounting the rest of the system.

I think there are some HOWTO's for the promise chips but I'm not sure were,
try googling for them.

JD


> 
> 		-----Original Message-----
> 		From:	Dominic Hargreaves [SMTP:dom@earth.li]
> 		Sent:	28 January 2003 19:51
> 		To:	herts@mailman.lug.org.uk
> 		Subject:	Re: [Herts] Newbie with Boot
> Hassle - Can anyone help?
> 
> 		On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 06:27:50PM -0000, Geoff
> Pitt wrote:
> 
> 		> Just to make life awkward for myself I'm
> trying to set it up on a newly
> 		> acquired RAID array and use Win98 at the same
> time.  I've been in touch with
> 		> SuSE support however they don't support RAID
> without extra payment.  My
> 		> situation is as follows:
> 
> 		What sort of RAID setup is it - a completely
> hardware-based solution? If so,
> 		SuSE have no business not supporting it as to
> the OS it's just another disk.
> 		If it's software-based, more information on
> what sort of configuration is
> 		being used is required.
> 
> 		> I've split my array into two equal partitions
> the first I've made active DOS FAT32
> 		> and installed Win98 and then booted the SuSE
> installation disk which has
> 		> identified the blank partition and installed
> OK.  I can access the OS
> 		> booting from the installation CD and have
> tried to use YaST to save LILO in
> 		> various locations (boot, root, floppy..)
> however, wherever I try to boot it
> 		> to it gives the same error:
> 		>
> 		> LI 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 ...........etc for
> several lines
> 		>
> 		> Then hangs.
> 		>
> 		> I've tried a third party boot manager
> (MasterBooter) to no avail - is there
> 		> a better solution?  I've just re-installed
> Win98 to get the boot partition
> 		> back and access email etc.
> 
> 		I would recommend grub as it has worked for me
> in obscure situations where
> 		LILO has failed. It also has the advantage of
> not needing you to reinstall
> 		it when you add a kernel, and provides a
> powerful command-line interface on
> 		the boot loader (in common with those seen on
> Real Computers :)
> 
> 		Look for grub and its documentation in your
> distribution -- if it doesn't
> 		exist there, its home page is
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/ and contains
		comprehensive documentation. If you still run into trouble,
post exact
		details here.

		As always, keep a windows and linux boot disk handy.

		Cheers,

		Dom.

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