[CentOS] Dell mirror raid boot problems

[Gregory P. Ennis]

On Tue, 2009-04-28 at 19:43 -0700, John R Pierce wrote:
> Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
> > To make things as clear as I can this is a DELL XPS Gen 2 Series a 32
> > bit machine using an i386 Centos OS 5.2 that was automatically upgraded
> > to 5.3 by yum.
> >   
> 
> oh, we thought you said a SERVER, such as a Dell PowerEdge, so we went 
> down the wrong bunnytrail :)
> 
> "XPS Gen 2" could refer to either a Inspiron XPS laptop, or a desktop 
> XPS Gen 2.    If its a P4, then its likely the desktop, as the laptop 
> used the Pentium-M.
> 
> > The RAID controller appears to be on the mother board to me.  The CPU is
> > an Intel Pentium 4 3.00GHz.    BIOS version of A02.
> >
> > In the bios I can turn on RAID on but when the system boots I get a grub
> > prompt.  The only way to get the system to boot is to turn off the RAID
> > configuration and boot to one drive.  
> >
> > I have not seen anything regarding PERC.  The SATA drives are connected
> > directly to the motherboard.
> >
> > I have still not been able to make it work as RAID.
> >
> > Thanks to everyone for your help.  This is my first RAID controller.
> >   
> no, its not.  its not a raid controller.  its 'BIOS raid' aka 'fake raid'
> 
> BIOS fake raid such as that isn't supported by Linux, instead, set the 
> controller for JBOD/ATA mode, and use the built in MD driver mirroring 
> in Linux.
> 
> see the comments here under "SATA",
> http://linux.dell.com/storage.shtml#sata

> the Inspiron XPS Gen 2 laptop has the same ICH6 southbridge IO chip as 
> the Precision Workstation this page mentions, while the Desktop XPS Gen 
> 2 had the previous version ICH5
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
John,

Thanks much for your help.  Sorry for the confusing information.  My
plan is to use this desktop as a mail server.

Appreciate your help!!!!

Greg