Bowie Bailey wrote: ..... md, lvm, etc... I make /boot a standalone partition as /dev/sda0 and later manually copy it to /dev/sdb0 which I mount as /boot2 I make a hda2 on each drive as a swap, mirrored as /dev/md1 I make a hda3 on each drive, mirror as /dev/md0, then make this a LVM, and all my system partitions are created in this LVM. its messy, but it works. here's some of the config of a simple dual IDE drive CentOS 5 box I setup for some tests... # fdisk -l Disk /dev/hda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux /dev/hda2 14 79 530145 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/hda3 80 60801 487749465 fd Linux raid autodetect Disk /dev/hdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux /dev/hdb2 14 79 530145 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/hdb3 80 60801 487749465 fd Linux raid autodetect # mdadm --misc --detail /dev/md0 /dev/md0: Version : 00.90.03 Creation Time : Mon Jul 23 03:21:50 2007 Raid Level : raid1 Array Size : 487749376 (465.15 GiB 499.46 GB) Device Size : 487749376 (465.15 GiB 499.46 GB) Raid Devices : 2 Total Devices : 2 Preferred Minor : 0 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Update Time : Wed Feb 6 13:50:07 2008 State : clean Active Devices : 2 Working Devices : 2 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 0 UUID : 0b01feb0:fcd82e29:fc464a34:7e30e91a Events : 0.4 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 0 3 3 0 active sync /dev/hda3 1 3 67 1 active sync /dev/hdb3 # lvm pvdisplay --- Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/md0 VG Name VolGroup00 PV Size 465.15 GB / not usable 29.75 MB Allocatable yes PE Size (KByte) 32768 Total PE 14884 Free PE 284 Allocated PE 14600 PV UUID w5489v-kCEo-tbY9-hwLl-GME0-x1wL-XjMSrC # lvm lvdisplay --- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 VG Name VolGroup00 LV UUID O7rU30-CQKO-18tJ-Vo1L-Zcxh-bOjk-00MM9C LV Write Access read/write LV Status available # open 1 LV Size 19.53 GB Current LE 625 Segments 1 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors 0 Block device 253:0 --- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 VG Name VolGroup00 LV UUID CUybA0-qRDq-HYEI-fxtX-f4YU-XVST-dmoC7G LV Write Access read/write LV Status available # open 1 LV Size 397.66 GB Current LE 12725 Segments 2 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors 0 Block device 253:1 --- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 VG Name VolGroup00 LV UUID hkx0s2-XaGt-WPzq-8vzS-fi3I-1z3C-MX41Uj LV Write Access read/write LV Status available # open 1 LV Size 39.06 GB Current LE 1250 Segments 1 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors 0 Block device 253:2 # df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 19G 1.7G 17G 10% / /dev/hda1 99M 17M 78M 18% /boot /dev/hdb1 99M 5.6M 89M 6% /boot1 tmpfs 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02 386G 291G 75G 80% /home /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol01 38G 882M 36G 3% /var and, here's the applicable anaconda-ks.cfg entries that got created at install time... clearpart --linux part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=100 --asprimary part swap --size=520 --ondisk=hdb part swap --size=520 --ondisk=hda --asprimary part /boot1 --fstype ext3 --size=100 --ondisk=hdb --asprimary part raid.4 --size=100 --grow --ondisk=hdb part raid.3 --size=100 --grow --ondisk=hda raid pv.6 --fstype "physical volume (LVM)" --level=RAID1 --device=md0 raid.3 raid.4 volgroup VolGroup00 --noformat --pesize=32768 pv.6 logvol / --fstype ext3 --name=LogVol00 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=20000 logvol /var --fstype ext3 --name=LogVol01 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=40000 logvol /home --fstype ext3 --name=LogVol02 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=100000 (ok, I lied, I didn't mirror my swap, I really should fix that)