RH 8 and HPT37X Install

[refog]

In advance, thanks for any pointers that are provided.

Equipment:
I have an ABIT mobo with the HPT370 controller on it. I have two (2) drives that are setup in a RAID-0 (partition already created with WinME on it, but space left over for Linux).

Problem:
When running the RH 8 install (no external driver is being used), it is seeing the drives as individual drives. I'm sure the HPT is listed as a device when RH starts up.

I have tried using a driver set from High Point that is read by the install, but I eventually end up in a "loop" of the install asking for driver disk set 1 (that is the only disk I have).

Do I need to configure a seperate boot disk for the install with the HPT drivers, or would someone know of a simple way of getting the install to work?

Again, thanks in advance.

refog

[dunbar]

Welcome to Linux Newbie.

I'm only going to bump your post up, I know nothing about RAID. I know there are RAID users herein, hopefully they'll be waking up soon.

BTW:
a] have you searched our forum for 'raid' (lower case) yet?
b] have you looked into the NHF links for Newbieized Help Files?

[singsong33]

I'm glad there's someone else out there going throught what I'm going through.

I've been struggling with this for a couple days now. I even took off of work to continue the wrestling match.

I'm a total noob myself, but this link will get you started.

http://www.terra.es/personal2/capullator/

Download the RH version. Looks like the guy took the opensource driver from Highpoint and modified one for RH8 and one for Mandrake9. He also recompiled a kernel, although I use that speak loosely. I still don't really know what the significance or how to mess with the kernel.

I completed the first half of his instructions:

1. boot off of his boot disk image (it's in the download and fairly clear)
2. Just before Anaconda loads "ctrl-alt-F2" to go into virtual terminal2
3. at prompt load his modules
4. return to terminal1 "ctrl-alt F1" and install

I can now go through Disk Druid and create partitions on "SDA" as one drive. The installations continues until end.

Thats all that I have accomplished. I don't understand the instructions that follow installation. They're important instructions because after reboot: kernel panic: no init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.

The boot disk created during installation doesn't work either.

I booted with CD and entered linux rescue: No linux partions found.

So the driver doesn't last a reboot? I'm sure I'm still thinking in M$ terms, but what should I be doing in the VT2 at the end of installation?

What is VT2? What access do I actually have? The prompt doesn't look like a shell or anything.


I also tried Highpoint's instructions. There documentation only mentions 7.1-7.3, but the kernel version mentions mine 2.4.18-3. I get to the driver prompt,and the controller driver is recognized and installed. Then after I provide the source for installation files(CD), message: second half of installation does not match the first. Installation then ends.

[cjc1664]

I don't know if this helps, but I managed to get Mandrake 9.0 working using this bloke's Mandrake files.

Two discs, one for booting, one with the kernel update. Here's what I did - perhaps someone with a bit more experience than I have can sift out the correct stuff from the random chance :)

Boot from the floppy disk, *without* the CD-rom in
When I was prompted to put the CD-rom in, I clicked "No" which brought up an option to search using a controller. I selected the hpt37x option.
Put the CD-rom back in to continue to the graphical installation screen.
When reaching the user agreement, I pressed Ctrl-Alt-F2 to bring up the text mode, where I entered:

cd /modules
modprobe sd_mod
insmod_ hpt37x2

the last command didn't work - I also tried insmod_hpt37x2 and insmod_ hpt37x2.o which returned "module already exists"

Ctrl-Alt-F7 back to the graphical menu
Continued installing until asked if I had a disk controller, when I said yes and selected ATARAID

The installer correctly recognised my drives, and I installed Mandrake onto the second drive

When the message comes up saying "installation complete, now reboot" it's Ctrl-Alt-F2 back to the text editor, and now I used the second disk (with the updated kernel, I believe)

mkdir fdtemp
mount /dev/fd0 fdtemp
cp -f fdtemp/* /mnt/boot
(note that the instrucions left the -f out - this will not overwrite the file)
cd /mnt/usr/sbin
(the instructions here said /mnt/usr/bin - this was incorrect for me)
./chroot /mnt
lilo

and then ctrl-alt-F7 again, and click OK to end installation and reboot.

I've been playing with this all evening to get it working - I found that if I just went back in booting from the CD-rom without using the floppy and chosing the correct drive controllers, the drives weren't accessible and therefore I couldn't mount fdo, which was giving me the kernel panic error you had.

Also, I had to play around with his instructions, as detailed above, as chroot was in sbin and not bin. The copy command was also in error.

Anyway - that's my first Linux install out of the way. I don't know that much about it all, but that's how I got it working.


cjc.