I'm so annoyed about the failures of the methods I've been using that I think I'll just try the steps below. I got the installation done, supposedly, except for GRUB. None of the instructions for post-installation are working. For example, when I look for the RAID in /dev/mapper/ all I see is "control" and no other items. There's one last hope -- one guy said that he couldn't boot until he turned fakeRAID "on" even though he was (like me) using software raid. I'll try that, but if it doesn't work, I'll install for the 5th time (or so) and will try to follow the instructions below. Mike On Tue, 12 Jul 2011, Mr. B-o-B wrote: > Mike Miller cried from the depths of the abyss... > > >> It gets worse. This time I created two partitions in the RAID 1: / and >> /swap. That should have worked, but when I get to the part where it wants >> to start writing to disk, it can't do it. It couldn't install the package >> manager and it couldn't install GRUB. > > Try to do the raid prep/setup outside of the Ubuntu installer first. > > This is how I setup software RAID 1's, and this has worked every time for me. > I have to be honest I haven't done this on Ubuntu, but I did just load the > latest Ubuntu live cd to check, and all the commands exist so this should > work fine. I have done this >30 times on Slackware, and a handful of times > on Centos & Fedora. I actually used a Slackware install disk to setup the > raid's on Fedora & Centos, but this is not necessary. The Ubuntu disk will > work just fine. > > I personally like fdisk to create my partitions, but can use cfdisk (or > anything else Ubuntu might have that you like). One disk 1 (lets call it > /dev/sda) Create at least two partitions (one for swap & one for /). Change > the types on both partitions to "Linux RAID autodetect" type "FD". > > I like to leave a coupe hundred megs fee at the end of the disk just in case > I need to replace one latter that isn't exactly the same size. This of course > is optional. > > Now copy your partitions to the 2nd drive (lets call it /dev/sdb) like: > sfdisk -d /dev/sda | sfdisk /dev/sdb > > When this command finishes it will display your Raid disk/partition scheme. > both drives should match. > > Next create your raid 1's > 1st - root partition (or swap depending how you created your partitions) > > mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level 1 --raid-devices 2 \ > /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 --metadata=0.90 > > Do the same for your other partition > > mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level 1 --raid-devices 2 \ > /dev/sda2 /dev/sdb2 > > Now format your swap array (assuming your swap is /dev/md1) > mkswap /dev/md1 > > Now start your install like normal. You should see /dev/md1 available for > your swap, and /dev/md0 available for your root. > > At this point I must take a step back. I'm old school, and prefer LILO on my > boxes. There are a few post install steps to config LILO properly. I can > send those if you are interested. > > For GRUB you will need to do the following post install (prior to reboot). > > I am guessing that UBUNTU(not sure, don't really use it) will attempt to > install grub for you(install in to your MBR). If it does it most likely will > fail (I've been surprised before though, and perhaps those sneaky people over > at Ubuntu have this figured out). If it fails that is OK. Let's just play > it safe & assume it's all F-ed up, and we are going to make it right. > > put grub on disk 1's MBR: > grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/sda > > cd /boot/boot/grub > > touch menu.lst > > Create a menu.lst for GRUB. I usually do something like this: > > timeout 10 > title Slackware Linux is better than Ubuntu > root (hd0,0) > kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/md0 ro > boot > > (not sure the naming scheme for Ubuntu, so double check the kernel part & > make sure to point the root= to the proper /dev/md# for your root partition) > > Save this, and take a peek at your /etc/fstab file to make sure your swap & / > are pointing to /dev/md0 & /dev/md1 > > /dev/md1 swap swap defaults 0 0 > /dev/md0 / ext3 defaults 1 1 > > OK. Now reboot it, and enjoy the ride. > > Hope this helps & Good Luck! > > Mr. B-o-B > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >