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Hello,
I'm currently experimenting with Archlinux on some test-machines, especially with
Software Raid Setups (based on mdadm, no 'fake' raids). I'm on the 2011.08.19 install media.
Now I tried it with a Sil3114 (with Sata Bios) with two attached Sata drives. I followed the tutorial here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/So … ID_and_LVM
(Without the LVM part).
The install worked with four ext3-raids metadata=1.0 md[1234] with sda[1234] and sdb[1234]
installed via /arch/setup (by manually setting mountpoints). Everything went well.
I installed the bootloader:
# dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sda
# dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdb
# mkdir /mnt/boot/extlinux
# extlinux --install /mnt/boot/extlinux
# cp /usr/lib/syslinux/menu.c32 /mnt/boot/extlinux
I also added "mdadm" to the right place in mkinitcpio (before 'filesystems') and
recreated the initramfs-linux.img.
Everything seems well. The motherboard bios can see the disks on the controller
and can select boot orders. BUT: it never ever shows the syslinux loader. It just
claims there is nothing to boot from - from any disk.
So I tried something else: I attached the drives off the Sil-Card to the onboard
Intel sata connectors. Now it finds the loader and shows the Boot menu (but
gives other errors because of the different setup => Intel drivers). I tried another
Sil 3114 Card and the same error prevails. It simply doesn't want to boot from it.
Strangely, a Quick'n'Dirty install of an recent different Linux flavour with auto-install
mdm/lvm-biffbang (way too much magic for my taste) has no problem booting off the controller.
I read the relevant parts of the Archwiki (and the Ubuntu and the Gentoo one) for ideas
but I don't see anything. The above link to the Software Raid-LVM wiki page also is very
thin with descriptions in the bootloader/syslinux/grub area.
Thanks for any hint.
Last edited by mtak (2012-06-14 18:56:31)
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For anybody who might come to the same issues:
After experiencing and read about lots of problems with booting software-raids based on Sil 3114
controller, I gave up. Many other posts on Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora Forums regarding this piece
of hardware brought up more unanswered questions than its worth. It has no problems with
softraid when you don't need to boot from it. Interestingly I had never any problems with it
under WinVista/7. It boots correctly from all different boxes.
I decided to swap the experiments to an VIA6421 based card, trying to salvaging the syslinux/raid
install. But to no avail. Grub and syslinux never found /root, neither via /dev/xx or uuid. I guess
it had something todo with the metadata=1.0/1.2 - which is strangely set on 1.2 default, when
so many (legacy?) tools have problems with it.
Then I tried to swap over to grub2, but the cfdisk I used didn't left the 1mb space in front of
the partition table. Since I didn't wanted to resize the first partition (to get a clear install results
for my reports) I stopped here.
Fresh start. Used another partition tool to create the partitions et. al. Followed the Wiki here
to the point. Installed arch via "select mountpoints" and then chrooted into the system, installed
grub2-bios and followed roughly the grub2 wiki.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB2
Read this completely before you start!
Now at least I see a boot menu and can root into the system - with some tricky manual tinkering
of grub2 scripts, because it reads lots of stuff wrong. Some of the problems are described here:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=127743&p=1
This issue is closed for me, simply by changing hardware and using different tools, respectively
grub2 instead of syslinux. Quite a nasty ride to get a cheap hardware softraid going these days.
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