Drive recognition @ install 3

[quickblueink]

Here's what I know:
I'm new to linux, just bought Redhat 7.1.
I'm using an old HP Netserver LF with 3 physical drives and RAID.
When I try to install, i get an error that linux cannot find any valid drives to write to. the it shuts down and goes back to DOS.

what i think is that Linux can't use/read the driver for the disks.

the question, then, is am i right? if i am, does anyone know where the best place would be to find a driver, and if not, what the actual problem might be and a solution to it?

muchas grassy-ass
M.austin

 

[MrTom]

maybe the RH bootdisk does not support your RAID controller, but i would have thought it would - i think it's an AMI MegaRAID controller which is not uncommon and well supported.

are your drives set up? as in have you initialised a RAID array though the BIOS?

 

[quickblueink]

I think raid is initialized, but its hard to say. i had this machine dumped in my lap, with no documentation or idea where it stands. i know when i boot it up it says it starts running HPDA (which seems like a RAID array thingie), but i have two big problems.
one is that i know VERY little about RAID, and two is that DOS is basically unusable. it seems like whoever had it last destroyed most of the OS.
its very strange, but things like "help" and "format" commands don't work, but other like "Dir" do. i can't even get into the BIOS to see if RAID is set up. The only way i know to get into the BIOS is by pressing F1 during the Boot, but it doesn't work. Is there another way? is this altogether wrong?

i already thought about just formating C: and starting over, but DOS won't let me format.

i tell ya, its mind boggling.

Arg, any other thoughts?
M.austin

 

[StarTAC]

your BIOS should be able to detect your RAID controller, so that it can initiate the spin up on the disks and inform the OS of their existence...

the other alternative would be to start the Linux setup and then load the modules for your RAID controller, hoping that it does have them..

good luck..

 

[quickblueink]

ok, that's a help, during boot up it does say spinning up disks", so i can assume that the BIOS detects the RAID Controller.
So the problem seems to be the Linux setup not reading the BIOS, or somehow not understanding the disks are there, right?
how does one fix that?--i am never given an opportunity to load any modules in the Lin. setup.

thanks,
M.austin

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

It certainly sounds as though the drivers needed for that RAID controller are not available during the vanilla install process. For situations like this there is an option during the install to get the installer to load such device drivers from floppy.

Have a look at this -->

http://www.redhat.com/support/manuals/RHL-7.1-Manual/ref-guide/ch-driverdisk.html

and create the drivers disk referred to therein and then follow the instructions at the bottom.

Basically, this is one of those catch-22 scenarios which are common with hardware like scsi insofar as the kernel (or at least the off-the-shelf kernels on the CDs) don't have support for the device built-in. There maybe modules on the hard drive you could load but the kernel can't yet access the hard-drive to do the loading! For these kind of systems a 'initrd' (init read-disk) needs to ber made as a kind of kernel extension for use during the first-stage boot process. That image contains the necessary drivers to access the hardware when the kernel can't yet load any code from the filesystem. There is clearly a similar situation if you have that kind of hardware when you are first installing.

Hope this helps..

 

[MrTom]

ok i think your machine actually has a mylex DAC960 card for the RAID. have a look if you can - if it isn't ignore all this

i would have thought that red hat would have had support for this in it's bootdisks but there maybe a few things that stop it from working. maybe a red hat user could tell you how to check out these things...

the driver is the Mylex and is in the normal kernel tree. maybe the module (driver) needs loading.
also check to see if the /dev/ entries are there. they are in the form /dev/rd/c0d0 - maybe the installer is too dumb to search in rd/.

i also saw a similar post in an archive where it was suggested "boot dra0 -fl 0" was used. i don't have a clue what any of this does - but when you boot the cd, when the very first thing comes up hit shift a few times then try typing it in.

maybe not the nicest introduction to linux but you could learn something

hth!