[CentOS] Re: Installation problem, possibly RAID

Sat Sep 10 10:19:04 UTC 2005
Edward Diener <eddielee at tropicsoft.com>

Craig White wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-09-09 at 22:58 -0400, Edward Diener wrote:
> 
>>I burned a DVD for CentOS 4.1. I booted from it and everything went fine for the 
>>graphical screen installation. I choose separate partitions for my /boot (hde6), 
>>/ (hde9), and swap (hde12) areas. My /boot partition was ext2 and my / partition 
>>was ext3. I installed grub in my /boot partition successfully. I have a Boot 
>>Loader, System Commander 8.13 which controls the MBR. The installation then 
>>nicely ejected my DVD disk, told me to remove any other installation media, and 
>>rebooted my machine. It rebooted into System Commander, I chose the CentOS boot 
>>partition, and this rebooted me to CentOS without a problem.
>>
>>CentOS now finished its installation steps, among which was setting up a user 
>>account, and attempted to bring up the login screen. My screen went dark, the 
>>icon went to a waiting/turning icon for a long time, and I said to myself uh-oh. 
>>Finally with most of the screen still dark a small message box appeared with an 
>>OK button which said:
>>
>>"Can not start the greeter program, you will not be able to log in. This display 
>>will be disabled. Try logging in by other means and editing the configuration file."
>>
>>I pressed OK, my screen went into text mode, and repeated lines of:
>>
>>ext3-fs error
>>(device hde9) in start transaction, Journal has aborted.
>>
>>continued to fill the screen.
>>
>>The only way to proceed was to hit the restart button of my computer.
>>
>>My thoughts of possible reasons for the failure are these. My hard drive is off 
>>of an HPT 374 Raid controller, without Raid being actually used on it, and is a 
>>160 GB hard drive, 147 GB formatted. The /boot (hde6) partition starts at 
>>approximately the 56 GB boundary, the / (hde9) partition starts at approximately 
>>the 76 GB, and the swap drive starts at approximately the 106 GB boundary.
>>
>>Is it possible that I needed to turn on LBA32 as an install option, since there 
>>was a screen where I could have checked it but did not ? Is it possible that I 
>>needed to tell the install, when choosing my partitions for /boot,/, and swap 
>>that this was a Raid controller, event though I am not using Raid with it, since 
>>I noticed a Raid button on the Disk Druid graphical screen but used Edit instead 
>>to set up my partitions ? Is it possible that CentOS either does not support my 
>>Raid controller or supports it in some earlier release which does not work 
>>properly even when not using Raid, so that I need to install the proper release 
>>of it somehow during the installation process ?
>>
>>I am groping for answers but am really hoping that someone has some knowledge of 
>>this problem so that I can use CentOS. Everything went well until the final 
>>disaster, and I was keen on getting CentOS to install on my computer. I had 
>>previously tried FC4 previously but that wouldn't even get past my graphical 
>>screen, failing because I have a Matrox P650 video adapter, but CentOS handled 
>>it with aplomb. I am a relatively Linux newbie although an experienced software 
>>developer and computer user, so if someone could help me get CentOS running it 
>>would really be appreciated. Thank you !
> 
> ----
> sounds like you handled things right

But obviously CentOS did not. Why ?

> but I'm confused as to what
> comprises things like /dev/hde1, hde2, hde3, hde4, hde5 etc.

I have 3 non-Linux primary partitions and then an extended partition where all 
my Linux logical partitions exist. My linux partitions in the extended partition 
consist of 3 100MB boot partitions for various Linux distros, of which I 
attempted to use the second of the 3 for CentOS, followed by 3 20 GB root 
partitions for those Linux distros, the second of the 3 used for CentOS, 
followed by a 10 GB common Linux partition to share files between the distros, 
followed by my common swap drive.

> 
> is it possible for you to boot CD #1 again and type 'linux rescue' (no
> quotes) at the boot prompt to enter rescue mode.
> 
> When it completes booting, it would be interesting to find out...
> 
> fdisk -l /dev/hde
> 
> (this will list the partitions)
> 
> you could try repairing the partitions...
> 
> e2fsck -fy /dev/hde6
> e2fsck -fy /dev/hde9

CentOS formatted these when I installed. Why would they need repair ?

> 
> Is this a dual-boot with Windows? If so, did Windows think any part of
> hde to be part of a RAID array?

Again, as explained in my OP, I have no RAID array but just the HPT 374 onboard 
RAID controller handling my hard drives. This is because my normal IDE contrller 
has other non-harddisk devices attached to it.