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#1 2009-01-09 21:15:24

Albert
Member
Registered: 2009-01-09
Posts: 3

Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

Hello

I've tried to installing Archlinux on my computer with fakeraid some time ago, but I couldn't start to install the linux distribution because didn't recognize the hard drives. Currently I have three hard drives on my computer, two of them have got 80GiB and my brother puts the two hard drives of 80GB working on FakeRAID (I believe that is RAID 0).

I tried to install on livecd the application 'dmraid', but not I recognized the hard drive on fakeraid again.

¿Can I install Archlinux in my computer somehow?

I put my problem in the Spanish forum, but nobody know how to help me.

Sorry if I have failures at time of writing, my English is not advanced.

Thanks in advance wink

Last edited by Albert (2009-01-09 21:28:11)

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#2 2009-01-09 22:04:14

Envil
Member
Registered: 2008-11-18
Posts: 52

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

Dont bother with dmraid and use mdadm instead imo ^^

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … AID_or_LVM

You can skip the LVM part and just do the mdadm stuff, its easier than dmraid and pretty much does the same.

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#3 2009-01-09 22:10:54

.:B:.
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Registered: 2006-11-26
Posts: 5,819
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Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

I suspect he has data on his motherboard RAID already that he doesn't want to lose (a Windows install probably). That is the reason why most people like to keep it wink.

To the topic starter: all you can do is try, there are instructions in the wiki if I am correct, but it is trial and error. As you said yourself you can abort when it's clear your RAID setup isn't detected, so trying shouldn't hurt anything. Dmraid is certainly not recommended and it is a known risk to try to run Linux on such RAID setups, since it may destroy your already existent data or the whole RAID setup alltogether.


Got Leenucks? :: Arch: Power in simplicity :: Get Counted! Registered Linux User #392717 :: Blog thingy

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#4 2009-01-10 00:03:29

nowahn
Member
From: elsewhere
Registered: 2008-12-05
Posts: 75

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

did you look at this wiki for installing archlinux with dmraid ?
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … _Fake-RAID

as it is said, the only reason to use this configuration is to dual boot with windows on the same RAID set, so if you don't use windows, you should consider using mdadm instead

B wrote:

Dmraid is certainly not recommended and it is a known risk to try to run Linux on such RAID setups, since it may destroy your already existent data or the whole RAID setup alltogether

the situation is not so bad as you seems to say, there are no more risk to destroy windows datas on a fakeraid disk than on "normal" disk", there is just another software layer for accessing the disk, just as with mdadm (but it is true that when you mess something with dmraid, you mess the whole RAID set)
so Albert, don't give up using dmraid, specially if you want to use RAID0 (because that means you are looking for performance, not security)

Albert wrote:

Currently I have three hard drives on my computer, two of them have got 80GiB and my brother puts the two hard drives of 80GB working on FakeRAID (I believe that is RAID 0)

please try to find out which RAID level is set in your BIOS. with 3 disk, it can be set to RAID5, and RAID5 is currently not supported by the kernel (at least for fakeraid, it is supported for softraid)
dmraid does not support all RAID levels, and the support depends on the motherboard's chipset. what is your motherboard's chipset (intel, nvidia, ...)

Albert wrote:

I put my problem in the Spanish forum

you should give a link, how knows, maybe there's another spanish lost in england big_smile
and it will not hurt non-spanish-speaking people's eyes lol

PS : sorry for my English too, but from latin people to latin people, we should understand each other wink


take time to daydream, inspiration comes ...

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#5 2009-01-10 00:28:10

Albert
Member
Registered: 2009-01-09
Posts: 3

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

Thanks for the answers.

Nowahn my level of RAID I think it is RAID 0. For RAID only use two 80GB hard drives together (80GB+80GB~=150GB in RAID).

I can not give the name of the hard disk controller because I do not remember now, but my motherboard is Asus big_smile

The wiki is a bit difficult for me, I had seen before but I didn't see that was talking about raid tongue

I have windows installed with Ubuntu (server). We can forget the third hard drive, as it only saves data...

PD.: Nowahn, thanks for your LatinEnglish big_smile, I've understood easily ^^

The link of the post in Spanish forum is http://www.archlinux-es.org/foros/viewt … =11&t=1751

Sorry for not post the link before, I forgot it :S (and I thought that it was not necessary to be the forum english).

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#6 2009-01-10 09:44:09

Envil
Member
Registered: 2008-11-18
Posts: 52

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

So you installed Ubuntu on the raid? Did you use dmraid there too?

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#7 2009-01-10 12:03:32

Albert
Member
Registered: 2009-01-09
Posts: 3

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

Envil wrote:

So you installed Ubuntu on the raid? Did you use dmraid there too?

Yes, I have got ubuntu server installed on my computer. I didn't install Ubuntu Desktop because never ends the installation (I installed dmraid in livecd, but it was eliminated from the RAM memory before completing the installation). With ubuntu server I didn't installed dmraid, but I could install the distribution without more problems.

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#8 2009-01-10 15:54:15

Envil
Member
Registered: 2008-11-18
Posts: 52

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

Well from what i read Ubuntu supports dmraid by default now so it should work with your raid i guess (or did you actually install it on another disk?).

After booting the Arch setup cd you should do this:

# modprobe dm_mod sata_sil
# pacman -U /src/core/pkg/dmraid*
# dmraid -ay

Whats the output after "dmraid -ay" ?

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#9 2009-01-10 17:52:28

nowahn
Member
From: elsewhere
Registered: 2008-12-05
Posts: 75

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

Albert wrote:

80GB+80GB~=150GB in RAID

that is surely RAID0, so dmraid supports it


take time to daydream, inspiration comes ...

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#10 2009-01-30 04:39:38

itaylor
Member
From: Gainesville, FL
Registered: 2009-01-30
Posts: 5

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

When I do:

dmraid -ay

I get, target type "raid45" not in kernel. There is a raid456. Seems like dmraid needs to be more up to date.

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#11 2009-01-30 04:56:58

itaylor
Member
From: Gainesville, FL
Registered: 2009-01-30
Posts: 5

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

Ignore, further investigation suggests that raid456 might be related to md raid, not fakeraid. So, just a missing module.

http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/11669

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#12 2009-02-01 03:48:03

itaylor
Member
From: Gainesville, FL
Registered: 2009-01-30
Posts: 5

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

To get archlinux installed on my system using the fakeraid on the Asus m2n-sli, I had to use my existing linux install.

I had unallocated spaced in my lvm2 volume group to work with, so I made a logical volume and followed parts of http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … her_distro.

I modified the dm-raid45 patch from http://people.redhat.com/~heinzm/sw/dm/ … .patch.bz2 to work with the kernel26-2.6.28 build from abs. Then, before installing the package, I modified my /etc/mkinitcpio.conf HOOKS to include dmraid and lvm2 before the filesystem hook. Once I installed the package, I ensured that the root disk image and kernel were in my real /boot partition and available to grub.

So, this all works and I'm able to boot arch linux and my pre-existing windows and ubuntu.

Sorry, this is my third day working with ArchLinux. I'd like to make a livecd or make available some of this work so that others would have an easier time using fakeraid during their install. Does anyone have suggestions to best use community resources to accomplish this? Is anyone interested in my configs?

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#13 2009-02-01 04:53:31

once
Member
From: Taiwan
Registered: 2006-09-12
Posts: 266

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

i do interested.
does this help hpt37x faidraid? cant install from 2008.06 & 2009.01-b3.

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#14 2009-04-17 21:03:31

itaylor
Member
From: Gainesville, FL
Registered: 2009-01-30
Posts: 5

Re: Installation of Archlinux on computer with FakeRAID

Can someone try out my kernel package that supports raid45? It works for me. I have an asus m2n sli deluxe motherboard.

$ lspci | grep RAID
00:05.0 RAID bus controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:05.1 RAID bus controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=25654

If it works, it'd probably be good to make an installation disk with raid45 support from this.

Also, sorry for the long delay on posting this. I'll look at patching the latest kernel if what I've posted is found useful.

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