# htp raid problems with grub

## markyd

Hi there,

I have been using gentoo for some time now and it is great! The only problem is that I have to boot off a floppy because every time I install grub it corrupts my raid array. I'm using a highpoint 370 controller in a stripe config. Does anyone know how to avoid grub clobbering my array? How many people have got it working?

Thanks,

Mark

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## Guest

I have it working great on my machine with HPT370 RAID-0. To get GRUB working you must install it using a bootable GRUB floppy, and delete the stage 1.5 {ext2|xfs|reiserfs} file in your boot partition. Once that's done it should work fine.

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## rommel

hey how did you get gentoo to install using the controller....i remember trying on a dual plll board and it would go to patition check hdg and just sit there with a blinking cursor....is there a howto or any doc on that

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## markyd

I believe I have already written something like this before but here we go again...

The reason that the partition check fails is due to the way that the auto-tuning is handled by the kernel. So to get the cd to boot pass the kernel ide3=noautotune ide4=noautotune (ide3 and 4 are the htp370 controller).

The cd should now boot as usual and when you get to the boot prompt. Install the drivers for the raid by typing the following....

insmod ataraid

insmod hptraid

Your raid drive should be now located under /dev/ataraid/disc0/disc

Hope this helps.

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## markyd

Hey what do you mean install grub from a floppy? Also if I install grub and then delete stage 1.5, shouldn't that  screw up grub? Any info would be appreciated.

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## Guest

hey i wanted to know this too....but how do you append the ide3 and ide4 to noautotune on a cd?...i am installing on a two clean drives...btw highpoint has released binaries for the 370 controller that can be compiled to your system.

sorry if these are really noob questions but i really would like to install gentoo on this board...i was going to use an epox 8kha+ but the agp controller went bad and after a little while the video goes out.....so that leaves me with a dual plll tulatin dvd266u-rn and it would be cool to have use of all the ide channels doesnt have to be raid enabled

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## Guest

ok is it done by issuing the ide3=noautorun/ide4=noautorun at the boot prompt before you gentoo loads the kernel and begins its system check...if so how would it look?

and did you set up your drives to raid 0 using the htp bios and then load gentoo on them as a striped array...i just wanted functionailty for the ide 3 and 4 so i could use lsr.

can you run and post an hdparm of say your /dev/sda3 or what ever your root directory is?

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## Guest

Hi, I'm the guest above with the working RAID-0 array on a HPT370 (using ABit KT7A-RAID motherboard). I setup the RAID array using the Highpoint BIOS and then installed Gentoo after moprobing hptraid from the stage1 install CD. I don't have to pass any extra options to the kernel, but I am using the latest Highpoint BIOS (2.31) so updating that may help (supposedly there is a performance increase as well).

I got grub working by executing the following at a console, with a floppy in the first floppy drive

```

mke2fs /dev/fd0

mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

mkdir /mnt/floppy/boot

mkdir /mnt/floppy/boot/grub

cp /usr/share/grub/i386-pc/stage1 /mnt/floppy/boot/grub

cp /usr/share/grub/i386-pc/stage2 /mnt/floppy/boot/grub

```

Then, to install GRUB to the disk, execute grub as root and then type this

```

root (fd0)

setup (fd0)

quit

```

Then after the disk has been created, mount your boot partition on your harddrive and delete the ext2_stage1_5 (replace ext2 with your filesystem type). This is necessary because it seems that GRUB's method of reading the ext2 partition when using stage 1.5 does not work with the Highpoint RAID controller.

Make sure that you've created a menu.lst at /boot/grub/menu.lst on your RAID array as well, mine looks like this (notice the root partition definition):

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> default 0
> 
> timeout 5
> ...

 

After all this is done, reboot with the GRUB floppy in the drive and type this at the GRUB prompt:

```

root (hd0,0)

setup (hd0)

reboot

```

You need to replace (hd0,0) and (hd0) in the above example with the locations of your boot partition and bootable harddrive respectively. When booted from the GRUB floppy, if you have only one Highpoint RAID array and no other harddrives on any onboard ide controllers, the above will probably be fine (replace the partition number with the location of your root partition however). Then take the floppy out and it should work, does for me anyway!

I found all the info I needed for GRUB from the great tutorial by Daniel Robbins, available from 

http://www.gentoo.org/index-articles.html

Hope that all makes sense

Dave

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## Guest

aaagghhh....dude thanks...it was the 1.1a cd i was using...i found the 16mb stage one i downloaded first and it went right past the patition check thing no problem...i modprobed the eth0 and then the hptraid like you said and it shows the two disks ...let you know what happens...lol...but thanks for answering...finally i can use this board for something useful

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## Guest

man i have done two installs today....each time the hptraid.o doesnt compile into the kernel...i tried once compiling it in and the second as a module both times i get an error at boot saying the 'HPT370A was detected but the driver was NOT COMPILED IN TO THE KERNEL....i have to go to sleep now but does anyone know why it wont take?....do i need to do something additional then adding it to the kernel when running menuconfig.

ciao

oh btw your grub from floppy and link to that article worked perfectly

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## Guest

If you'e using the gentoo-sources kernel version (highly patched kernel 2.4.1 :Cool:  then I don't think Highpoint software RAID will work. I tried it, and the kernel would boot, but panic when it couldn't mount my RAID array (/dev/ataraid/disc2). I had definitely compiled Highpoint support into my kernel, and devfs was also mounted so that couldn't be the problem. In the end I switched back to the stable 2.4.18 kernel (vanilla-sources) and everything now works fine.

HTH

Dave

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## Guest

Of course, my raid array described above should be /dev/ataraid/disc0/part2 !

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## Guest

you serious....lol...i am on the third install from stage1 in 24hrs....LOL...man i dont know what to do now...guess i should wipe out the /usr/src/linux and emerge the vanilla sources then...but again your floppy thing did the trick....so i trust ya...lol

i thought it was a dual cpu hptraid linux issue that was causing the trouble...i remembered reading that it did work with mutltiple processors yet....of corse i remembered this after the second failure...lol

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## Guest

aarrgghhh its not working....just keeps schrolling down listing the drives over and saying lost interupt

hde: lost interrupt

hde: lost interrupt

hdg: lost interrupt

and so on and so on...like the energizer penguin....lol

when you ran fdisk on your drives and wrote the table and exited do you remember if it gave you an error messege like it couldnt set the table and it would do it the next time you booted or something?

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## amigadave

Yes, I did get a message from fdisk saying that it couldn't sync the partition table and that I should reboot. I can't remember whether I did or not though. Probably best to assume that I did and reboot yourself, if you haven't already of course! You also might want to check that the IRQ of your HPT controller is not being shared with other devices (does this cause a lost interrupt?) and if so try moving your PCI cards around until nothing else is sharing.

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## Guest

well...lol....i just got bacj from running and i am gonna try it again...this time from a stage3 install...lol....so if it doesnt work its not such a big deal...well doesnt matter anyway but i'll be able to try it again sooner...hey thanks for all your input...you've been really helpful and made this pretty fun even if it aint working for me as of yet...lol

merwan

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