# Compaq Hardware Raid

## Tuinslak

Since a week I bought a 2nd hand Proliant Compaq server. This is quite an old version; 2*P3 1Ghz, 1280Mb ram, 2* 72Gb SCSI hdd. 

This server has a hardware raid, which do not need any RPM drivers (like the Supermicro raid servers).

Right, my first question. I can get into the raid-config, and it's set to RAID1 at the moment. But I cannot get into the BIOS. Is there any exotic button(s) I need to push to get in? I tried DEL, F1 and F2. I even tried pushing multiple buttons on my keyboard, which resulted in "keyboard error", but I couldn't go into the BIOS, it just kept booting (detect CPU's and disk array).

Now, I tried booting Gentoo from it;

2006.0: All kind of errors with Zlib. Tried without hotplug, doraid, ... Always same errors.

2004.0: Doesn't detect my network cards (e100 driver)

1.4: works fine, just doesn't seem to find any raid disks.

So I tried Ubuntu (warty) which detected all, even my disks (well, one disk actually, /dev/ida/c0d0).

I was planning to bootstrap gentoo from the Ubuntu livecd, but wanted to compile the kernel first. Just to make sure I didn't compile gentoo for 24 hours, and then my kernel would fail. I wget'ted the source of 2.6.15.6, and builtin everything I thought was needed. This includes the cpqlinux driver, for compaq raid.

As my FS is ext3 at the moment, I also added ext3 support. 

I edited lilo to use the new kernel (grub didn't want to install), and rebooted the machine.

This gave me this error: "not synching: VFS: unable to mount root device on unknown block".

I do not quite understand why I'm receiving this error. 

This is my lilo config (most important part):

```
boot=/dev/ida/c0d0

root=/dev/ida/c0d0p1

image=/vmlinuz

        label=Linux

        read-only

#       restricted

#       alias=1

        initrd=/initrd.img
```

I read the doc about Compaq Array, and it says /dev/ida/c0p0 is the correct drive to use.

/dev/ida exist (logic), but I'll proof it anyway  :Razz: :

```
root@testosteron:~ # ./mkdev_ida 

mknod: `/dev/ida/c0d0': File exists

mknod: `/dev/ida/c0d0p1': File exists

mknod: `/dev/ida/c0d0p2': File exists

mknod: `/dev/ida/c0d0p5': File exists
```

I used this file to make /dev/ida: http://www.cpqlinux.com/mkdev_ida.txt

Any idea why the kernel is failing to load (and why Gentoo is failing to boot)?

Also, and other question about the hardware raid.

As I installed Ubuntu I always tested removing one of the 2 disks (hotswap).

I removed one, and Linux kept running, plugged it back in, waited 30 minutes, and pulled out the 2nd one, and Linux crashed (disk error).

I rebooted the server, apparantly it rebuilded the array, linux booted again, and tried the same but pulled disk2 first. Readded it, removed the 1st disk, and had same problem.

So my conclusion is that it only rebuilds when the server is rebooted; is this correct?

Sorry for my poor English, and perhaps this post has been posted in the wrong forum.

Kind regards,

Yeri

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## Bad Penguin

 *Tuinslak wrote:*   

> Right, my first question. I can get into the raid-config, and it's set to RAID1 at the moment. But I cannot get into the BIOS. Is there any exotic button(s) I need to push to get in?

 

If you don't have the compaq "system partition" you will probably have to download one of the compaq smartstart CDs to get into the raid configuration.  On some of the older proliants you had to use the smartstart cd to create the compaq utilities partition...

 *Tuinslak wrote:*   

> Now, I tried booting Gentoo from it;
> 
> 2006.0: All kind of errors with Zlib. Tried without hotplug, doraid, ... Always same errors.
> 
> 2004.0: Doesn't detect my network cards (e100 driver)
> ...

 

On the 2006.0 media, you might be running into this bug.  The init system runs hdparm which attempts to set dma on the cdrom, causing it to lock up.

On the 2004.0 media I ran into problems with the e100 module also.  The only way I could get it to work was to turn off all detection and then modprobe eepro100, which worked ok, e100 would not.

If you are using 2006.0 and a recent kernel, you might have to use /dev/ida/disc0/disc instead of /dev/ida/c0d0, /dev/ida/disc0/part1 instead of /dev/ida/c0d0p1, and so on.  Although udev creates the links, I couldn't boot using them, I had to switch over the the new naming scheme in my fstab, lilo.conf, etc...[/bug]

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## Tuinslak

Ok, thank you.

I tried Gentoo 1.4, which worked after loading correct modules. 

About that compaq partition thing, i'll check the internet. That tool is indeed not installed.

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## NotQuiteSane

 *Tuinslak wrote:*   

> Ok, thank you.
> 
> I tried Gentoo 1.4, which worked after loading correct modules. 
> 
> About that compaq partition thing, i'll check the internet. That tool is indeed not installed.

 

just spotted this.

the web page you went to above (cpqlinux) has a link to HP's page containing the ACU utility.

also, here, the entry from grub I use to boot into it:

```
# Stupid BIOS on disk...

title System Configuration utility

rootnoverify (hd0,0)

chainloader = (hd0,2)+1
```

code is also from cpqlinux.

NQS

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