Ryan Langseth wrote: > I would think its because Promise made the driver work with windows > since they would lose alot more market share if they did not. Also > you should be able to make the promise raid controller act like a > regular controller(w/o raid) and then you should be able to boot off > of the disks, rather than getting a IDE drive. Also check google some > more, it has been a while since I did anything with promise raid(1 > year+), maybe things have changed. > > -ryan > On 7/16/05, Kevin Lombardo <kevin.lombardo at gmail.com> wrote: > >>Well I guess I'll probably try to get an IDE and scrap the RAID, but I >>would like to know: why does the NT/W2K boot loader boot off the array >>just fine? >> I had a Promise Raid card, was not thrilled with it. If I recall correctly I had to do some fooling around with getting a kernel module passed in at boot time to get the raid working. Okay, I went and found the email I had from the support tech, this was for Red Hat and I'mnot sure if this will count for a sata controller or not, but it may give you somewhere to start from. PROMISE FastTrak Series Linux Driver For Red Hat Linux 7.3/8.0 Version 1.02.0.25 [11/18/2002] [INTRODUCTION] 1.1 Foreword This procedure applies to all Promise FastTrak Series adapters and onboard chipsets running under the RedHat Linux operating systems. Do NOT use this procedure for other versions of Linux. 1.2 Support List PDC20262 FastTrak66 PDC20265R FastTrak100 Lite/SMARAID PDC20267 FastTrak100 PDC20270 FastTrak LP/TX2/TX4 PDC20271 FastTrak TX2000 PDC20276 MBFastTrak133 Lite PDC20277 SBFastTrak133 Lite with Red Hat 7.3 (kernel 2.4.18-3) Red Hat 8.0 (kernel 2.4.18-14) 1.3 Prepare a Driver Diskette You will use a diskette to load the new Linux driver onto your PC. 1) Obtain a new, formatted diskette and label it "FastTrak Driver Disk." Insert it into your PC's floppy drive. 2) Extract the contents of the driver file you downloaded from the Promise website onto your floppy disk. Use either WinZIP in Windows or Unzip in Linux to extract the files. [INSTALLATION] 2.1 To install the FastTrak Series Linux Driver into an EXISTING SYSTEM: 1.) Boot linux system and login as root. 2.) Insert FastTrak Driver Disk for install FastTrak Driver by issuing commands : # mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy # cd /mnt/floppy # sh install (Answer Yes/No when inquire setup configuration) You can answer Yes to bind FastTrak driver into linux booting. # cd .. # umount /dev/fd0 NOTE: Due to the Linux kernel misidentifying the FastTrak card, all IDE channels except onboard IDE are disabled. To enable the other IDE channels, remove the line "ide2=0 ide3=0 ide4=0 ide5=0 ide6=0 ide7=0 ide8=0 ide9=0" in /etc/lilo.conf or /boot/grub/grub.conf. 3.) Reboot Red Hat linux system. 2.2 To install the FastTrak Series Linux Driver into a NEW SYSTEM 1.) Start the Red Hat Linux Installation with CD-ROM booting. 2.) At the "Welcome to Red Hat Linux ..." installation screen, a prompt labeled "boot:" will appear at the bottom of the screen. 3.) Please append parameters (see Note 1 below) at the "boot:" prompt, then press the Enter key. 4.) At the "Devices" dialog box, insert the FastTrak Driver Disk in the floppy drive and then select "OK" or "Yes" to continue install. 5.) Enable "Configure advanced boot loader options" box at Boot Loader Configuration menu, and type kernel parameters (see NOTE 2 below) in the General kernel parameters field. 6.) Continue with the installation as normal. 7.) If the installer occur warning message about "The kernel was unable to re-read the partition table on /dev/sd(x), (Device or resource busy)...", Please do not click skip, just click Ignore bottom to continue the install. 8.) Press Ctrl-Alt-F2 when installation at the "Congratulations" menu. 9.) Insert the FastTrak Driver Disk floppy, Issue commands to load FastTrak driver. # umount /tmp/fd0 (For safety issue, Just in case) # chroot /mnt/sysimage # mount /dev/fd0 /mnt (If USB Floppy, Please choose USB floppy device such as /dev/sdb) # cd /mnt # sh setup-ft 10.) Choose your selection here, after FastTrak driver setup successful. # cd / # umount /mnt # exit 11.) Please press Ctrl-Alt-F7 and click "Exit" button to finish installation. [NOTE] Linux Kernels 2.4.x misidentiy Promise ATA-RAID controllers as simple IDE controllers. This results in the built-in Linux IDE driver trying to handle the controller and can prevent the proper FastTrak ATA RAID driver from loading. Follow the installation instructions AND the parameter commands referred to below section. This status we called "IDE issue". 1.) "linux ide0=0x1f0, 0x3f6,14 ide1=0x170, 0x376,15 ide2=0 ide3=0 ide4=0 ide5=0 ide6=0 ide7=0 ide8=0 ide9=0" 2.) "ide0=0x1f0, 0x3f6,14 ide1=0x170, 0x376,15 ide2=0 ide3=0 ide4=0 ide5=0 ide6=0 ide7=0 ide8=0 ide9=0" 3.) Occasionally, during bootup, you may see Unresolved Symbols, followed by an OK or a FAILED. In either case, this is a cosmetic error and does not affect RedHat Linux 7.3 or the FastTrak RAID Controller card. 4.) Rarely, during bootup, you may see a HUSH (humble shell) message. This is also a cosmetic error and does not affect RedHat Linux 7.3 or the FastTrak RAID Controller card. 5.) To see information on your array(s) and the Driver version number: a. Launch your terminal emulation program. b. Type "cat /proc/scsi/FastTrak/(x)" then press Enter, x is a register number in your system.