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williamkray

Member

Registered: 2010-11-06

Posts: 64

[SOLVED] strange behavior, no GRUB with new RAID6 drives plugged in

So, I have a multitude of problems, some of which I'm pretty sure that I can figure out on my own. But, I haven't messed with RAID (mdadm software raid only) before, so I'll put this question to anyone more expert than me:

My boot and system stuff is all on it's own SSD, not RAID. the RAID drives are just for storage. I just plugged them in and set them up last night, but when I reboot the system with the drives plugged in, I don't get a GRUB menu. If I unplug them and just have my boot drive, everything works fine (well not fine, but that I can fix myself).

My best guess right now is that my boot drive is /dev/sdb or something not higher up in the food chain, while the drives for RAID are plugged into sata ports for /dev/sda, /dev/sdh, /dev/sdi, and /dev/sdj (SATA0, SATA3, SATA4, SATA5 or something like that). This shouldn't make a difference, because only the OS drive is marked as bootable, right?

another guess I have is that the OS drive is MBR format and the RAID drives are all GPT because of their size (i can't remember about the OS drive, but it's a possibility that it's MBR). Would mixing and matching partition formats on different drives cause problems?

Any other insight would be very helpful, just sortof fumbling around in the dark right now.

Last edited by williamkray (2014-01-04 04:36:02)

dvdkon

Member

Registered: 2014-01-03

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] strange behavior, no GRUB with new RAID6 drives plugged in

Do you mean "grub doesn't load" by "I don't get a GRUB menu"? That'd indicate that something is wrong with your BIOS/EFI. You could try Plop boot manager. Also make sure you have everything set to UUIDs in GRUB.

williamkray

Member

Registered: 2010-11-06

Posts: 64

Re: [SOLVED] strange behavior, no GRUB with new RAID6 drives plugged in

correct, grub doesn't load, computer just hangs at a blinking cursor. GRUB config file currently uses LABEL operators, if i remember correctly, but i'll have to double check.

williamkray

Member

Registered: 2010-11-06

Posts: 64

Re: [SOLVED] strange behavior, no GRUB with new RAID6 drives plugged in

got my answer on Google+, turned out it was the BIOS boot order (system was trying to boot from one of the raid drives). marking as solved.