# ICH5R Possible Solution

## oblio

It's been forever since I have had Linux installed because of my new system. I have an Abit IC-7 and 2 Western Digital Raptors in Raid 0. From all my searching it looks like you can't install on raid 0 on this mobo but while browsing the Abit forums someone found a link to drivers on Intel's site for an asus motherboard. Supposedly it supports the ICH5R chip so you can have hardware raid in linux. My skills are too dusty and my time to short to experiment with this myself but here's the link if anyone wants to give this a try. If anyone does get it to work it'd be great if they could post how they did it so the rest of us could do it. I may try it in a week or two but don't know that I have the skills to get it done. Hope this maybe helps those of us who have these boards and have been waiting for raid 0 support. http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/Detail_Desc.asp?agr=N&Inst=Yes&ProductID=960&DwnldID=6586

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## gaz

There is a patch for 2.4.22 which supports ich5r sata raid.

I havent had an opportunity to test it.

http://lwn.net/Articles/60247/

the 2.6 kernel patch is just awaiting ataraid to be ported to 2.6

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## Minos

I'd like to point out that the ICH5R isn't really hardware RAID.  It's just Intel's flavor of software RAID.  Jeff Garzik explans it on LKML here.

On the other hand, special Intel software RAID drivers might be useful in a dual-boot situation where both the OSes were on partitions in the array.  If that's not your case, then give the kernel software RAID a try.

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## oblio

I dont mean to spam the forums but I'm gonna post this link in each of the recent threads that deal with this issue. It would be cool if people who tried it posted their success with it. I hope to try it next weekend. I got a lot of backing up to do first.

http://users.pandora.be/TheBlackUnicorn/linux/

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## gaz

nice article  :Smile: 

Im going to be backing up all of my stuff and giving this a go, will post back with results.

Im also going to try and get a 2.4 livecd running with a patched kernel specifically for ICH5R raid0 installations. Ill let everyone know when im done any suggestions -> gaz@walan.org

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## oblio

Good Luck Gaz!!! Let us/me know how it goes!  :Very Happy: 

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## gaz

just to keep everyone up to date, I have created a stage2 livecd with the patched kernel which supports the ich5r raid0 function, but im waiting for catalyst to enable stage3 support of the livecd portion of catalyst. Then i can produce a burnable iso for everyone  :Smile: 

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## taskara

 *gaz wrote:*   

> just to keep everyone up to date, I have created a stage2 livecd with the patched kernel which supports the ich5r raid0 function, but im waiting for catalyst to enable stage3 support of the livecd portion of catalyst. Then i can produce a burnable iso for everyone 

 

just give us stage!  :Wink: 

anyway I have made a workaround, and am using my ich5r controller in "hardware" raid0 for windows, and using linux software on the same drives and controller for gentoo!

so far it's worked perfectly  :Very Happy:  so I have the best of both worlds

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## gaz

livecd-stage2 isnt a burnable, bootable iso  :Sad: 

I used to run raid0 in windows and software raid in linux.. but i swapped into each o/s too frequently stuff around in the bios each time  :Sad: 

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## galay2

gaz and taskara you guys mentioned that you run linux and windows in different mode(software and hardware) and also uses different drivers? How is this possible??? If you use intel drivers for windows, it wont work with linux software raid (md) and vice versa?? Please explain, I'm willing to set my bios every time I reboot.

Anyway...

Recently I have got one of the knoppix variants author to build a custom cd that can read ICH5R raids(and this required a LOT, and I repeat, A LOT of work for me and the author to put together this wonderful special cd). To get a copy of this custom cd, email me yalag@hotmail.com. Still working on a way to install the whole thing on hd, willing/hoping to work this out with someone else. 

(come on, everyone pls work together with this, we must get it to work! Rant/hd install problems is at thread "Does Gentoo Have Alternatives To Devfs??"   I dont want to give up now when the cd is built after 3 weeks of work  :Mad:   )

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## taskara

 *galay2 wrote:*   

> gaz and taskara you guys mentioned that you run linux and windows in different mode(software and hardware) and also uses different drivers? How is this possible??? If you use intel drivers for windows, it wont work with linux software raid (md) and vice versa?? Please explain, I'm willing to set my bios every time I reboot.
> 
> Anyway...
> 
> Recently I have got one of the knoppix variants author to build a custom cd that can read ICH5R raids(and this required a LOT, and I repeat, A LOT of work for me and the author to put together this wonderful special cd). To get a copy of this custom cd, email me yalag@hotmail.com. Still working on a way to install the whole thing on hd, willing/hoping to work this out with someone else. 
> ...

 

if you made a knoppix cd that can read intel raid arrays, then you must have some sort of driver on there.

can't you just use that driver for gentoo?

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## gaz

just chroot into the gentoo environment with the knoppix cd and emerge the 2.4.25 (?) kernel and patch them with the iswraid patches / libata patches then compile your kernel. You may require altering the initrd seqeunce, but im not sure how to do that .. just do a search on the forums and bobs your uncle  :Smile: 

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## taskara

 *gaz wrote:*   

> just chroot into the gentoo environment with the knoppix cd and emerge the 2.4.25 (?) kernel and patch them with the iswraid patches / libata patches then compile your kernel. You may require altering the initrd seqeunce, but im not sure how to do that .. just do a search on the forums and bobs your uncle 

 

ahh ok.. yeah I forgot about 2.4.x - had my mind fixed on 2.6 kernels  :Confused: 

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## galay2

I followed the gentoo install doc from knoppix as close as possible, downloaded 2.4.23, patched and build initrd. Installed lilo and hoped every will work, but nope, as I have described in the other post, the "iswraid" driver does not support devfs, so devfs will try to create "/dev/ataraid/disc0/*" entries while the right ones are /dev/ataraid/d0pX" so you'll fail to mount root partition. Seeing that both of you are more knownledgeable on linux, can you guys give it are try and work it out together?

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## gaz

once I get the livecd working I will be moving to iswraid, or once I get a spare IDE drive I can do an installation on.

btw, if you are having trouble booting you may wish to apply the following patch to grub so it can boot directly into iswraid.

http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=detailitem&item_id=7555

there is a patch available for the CVS version of GRUB and 0.93

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## gaz

 *galay2 wrote:*   

> I followed the gentoo install doc from knoppix as close as possible, downloaded 2.4.23, patched and build initrd. Installed lilo and hoped every will work, but nope, as I have described in the other post, the "iswraid" driver does not support devfs, so devfs will try to create "/dev/ataraid/disc0/*" entries while the right ones are /dev/ataraid/d0pX" so you'll fail to mount root partition. Seeing that both of you are more knownledgeable on linux, can you guys give it are try and work it out together?

 

try and put those entries in /etc/devfsd.conf

(I havent got access to my machine at the moment so i might be wrong)

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## galay2

gaz, I'm told to use lilo because it's proven to work with iswraid, so I dont think it's too good an idea to mess with grub with even more patches. 

Also, I've turned off devfs because I thought it wouldnt work, but if I were to add entries to devfsd.conf what should I add? The conf file looks very complicated, I just want it to create /dev/ataraid/d0p[5-7].

Since I already have a working linux livecd, gaz do you want to work from there instead of waiting to build the gentoo livecd? Trying to get my linux up asap really after months already...

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## gaz

 *galay2 wrote:*   

> gaz, I'm told to use lilo because it's proven to work with iswraid, so I dont think it's too good an idea to mess with grub with even more patches. 
> 
> Also, I've turned off devfs because I thought it wouldnt work, but if I were to add entries to devfsd.conf what should I add? The conf file looks very complicated, I just want it to create /dev/ataraid/d0p[5-7].
> 
> Since I already have a working linux livecd, gaz do you want to work from there instead of waiting to build the gentoo livecd? Trying to get my linux up asap really after months already...

 

not a problem, where can i d/l it from ? pm me if u are scarce with bandwidth

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## taskara

hey guys..

 grub 94-r1 is in the portage, which *should* contain the patch for intel raid controllers..

you coudl try emerging that before giving up on grub..

it is from 26th Feb I think, and the patch was included on the 19th Feb, whereas the grub you have emerged is from 19th Jan.

just a thought..

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## gaz

hey guys, I've got it working... i'll post something a bit more descriptive soon  :Smile: 

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## taskara

 *gaz wrote:*   

> hey guys, I've got it working... i'll post something a bit more descriptive soon 

 

awesome.. will be waiting for your post!

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## gaz

here it is  :Smile: 

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=149142

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## taskara

awesome

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