[TriLUG] Problems with debian software raid install.

[William Sutton]

Humm...

Check your bios boot order?
Check that it isn't looking at hdb1 first?

I have my machine powered off right now so I can't check config for 
comparison :(

William Sutton


On Mon, 8 Oct 2007, David A. Cafaro wrote:

> I toggled the /dev/hda1 as bootable (at least in the debian
> installer), but there wasn't an option to toggle /dev/md0 as
> bootable.  I believe only /dev/hda1 needs to be toggled as I think
> that's a BIOS search (which wouldn't be aware of the /dev/md0 device).
>
> -David
>
> On Oct 8, 2007, at 2:18 PM, William Sutton wrote:
>
>> did you toggle your raid boot partition to bootable?
>>
>> William Sutton
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 8 Oct 2007, David A. Cafaro wrote:
>>
>>> Hmm, that doesn't seem to be the problem I'm having.  Everything
>>> seems to have gone smoothly, no complaints about partition or file
>>> system creation.  And it does actually create the raid system and
>>> install all the software as requested (and confirmed using the Fedora
>>> rescue CD).  It just won't boot.  Thanks though.
>>>
>>> -David
>>>
>>>
>>> On Oct 8, 2007, at 2:11 PM, William Sutton wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have Etch running on a pair of PATA drives using RAID1.  The Etch
>>>> installer (or I) seem to have issues creating layered filesystem
>>>> types
>>>> (e.g., ext3 on lvm on raid).  My recollection of what I had to do
>>>> was
>>>> this:
>>>> - create the raid filesystem
>>>> - instruct the installer to continue (to force it to actually write
>>>> the fs
>>>> information)
>>>> - the installer would determine (after creating the raid fs) that it
>>>> didn't have an fs it could write to and bump you back to the fs
>>>> creation
>>>> part of the installer
>>>> - then select the newly created raid partitions for your new
>>>> fs's, set
>>>> things as you want, lather, rinse, repeat until you have your
>>>> filesystems
>>>> the way you want
>>>>
>>>> it's a bit of a pain...either I'm doing something wrong or (I
>>>> think) the
>>>> etch installer fs creation code needs fixing
>>>>
>>>> William Sutton
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, 8 Oct 2007, David A. Cafaro wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ok, I need some help.  I'm normally a RedHat/CentOS/Fedora person,
>>>>> but for this project I needed to go with Debian.  One
>>>>> requirements is
>>>>> that the two 160GB hardrives be setup to provide software raid.  No
>>>>> problem the Debian installer seems to handle that no problem and
>>>>> I'm
>>>>> able to setup everything how I would like:
>>>>>
>>>>> /dev/hda1 108GB raid1 bootable flag
>>>>> /dev/hda2 20GB raid1
>>>>> /dev/hda3 20GB raid1
>>>>> /dev/hda4 2GB raid1
>>>>>
>>>>> /dev/hdc1 108GB raid1 bootable flag
>>>>> /dev/hdc2 20GB raid1
>>>>> /dev/hdc3 20GB raid1
>>>>> /dev/hdc4 2GB raid1
>>>>>
>>>>> /dev/md0 108GB / raid1
>>>>> /dev/md1 20GB /home raid1
>>>>> /dev/md2 20GB /tmp raid1
>>>>> /dev/md3 2GB swap raid1
>>>>>
>>>>> (that's roughly how it's setup)
>>>>>
>>>>> All seems to go well debian install goes right through and installs
>>>>> all the software, claims grub is installed and reboots.  At which
>>>>> point I get a no bootable device found.  I think maybe grub didn't
>>>>> get install correctly so I try booting into debian rescue.  Debian
>>>>> can't mount the raid, doesn't see it, just the raw raid partitions.
>>>>> Just for kicks I boot Fedora 6 rescue, it sees the partitions no
>>>>> problem and mounts them all for me to work with.  So from Fedora 6
>>>>> rescue I chroot and reinstall grub, reboot, and still no boot
>>>>> devices.  Then I find the following article:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://valery.bgit.net/blog-en/2006/07/30/debian-installer-sata-
>>>>> and-
>>>>> software-raid/
>>>>>
>>>>> And figure I'll give that a shot.  I step through the whole article
>>>>> (converting SATA to PATA instructions) and no problem, reboot
>>>>> and no
>>>>> bootable devices.  At this point I've started trying to play
>>>>> with the
>>>>> bios settings to see if that helps, I'm just wondering if there
>>>>> is a
>>>>> known issue with Debian Grub and booting from software raid devices
>>>>> (which should not be a challenge like this).  Any clues?
>>>>>
>>>>> And this is Debian Etch v 4.0 r1 i3.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> David
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> David A. Cafaro <dac at cafaro.net>
>>>>> Cafaro's Ramblings:  www.cafaro.net
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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