On 12/02/2007 03:32 PM, Jim Flanagan wrote: > Greetings all, > > I'm trying to do a new install of opensuse 10.3 on a new server box. I'd > like to have raid1 (mirror) set up with 2 drives. I don't know the full > differences between md raid and dm raid, but I followed the instructions > on installing md raid on the opensuse wiki, using yast to set up the > raid partitions. The problem is the system won't boot on the first > reboot after install. I originally set all partitions to be extended > (not primary) which didn't boot. So I started over from scratch and set > /boot as primary partition with all others, swap, /, /home, etc as > extended, but it still won't boot. At this point I had enabled raid in > the bios for both sata controllers, but not set up the raid volume in > the motherboard raid controller. > > Switching gears I then tried setting up the dm raid in the bios and yast > saw that as an nvidia_sometingorother and I believe that would have > installed and booted, but I'm unsure whether or not I should use the dm > raid or if the md raid is preferable. > Mine did work, but I have had a fair bit of experience with md raid. First, you mentioned you had a separate boot partition. Is that also a part of your raid1? Since grub does not understand md raid yet, it needs to boot from the MBR of one of the drives. Obviously, the generic MBR (which boots the active partition) will not work with md raid, but that is the default. During install, you need to change where grub is installed, putting it in the MBR. On mine, my /boot is on my raid1 root. This is noted in grub's menu.lst. Grub finds the /boot/grub directory initially via one of the drives, i.e. sda5. It then loads stage 1.5, and the raid1 modules have to be a part of the initrd for it to find and use the raid1. When I upgraded our office server, I did change the defaults for grub, but it had no problems finding the raid1 root or boot, and installed quite smoothly, so it does work. Just remember, the default is a generic boot loader in the MBR, and grub is NOT installed in the MBR. Since if boot is on raid, that partition cannot be made active, so it cannot boot that way. GRUB needs to be installed in the MBR of the drive your BIOS is set to boot from. HTH.
-- Joe Morris Registered Linux user 231871 running openSUSE 10.3 x86_64 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
