Re: scary RAID-1 problems

From: Christopher K. Johnson (ckjohnson_at_gwi.net)
Date: 06/18/04

  • Next message: Bruno Wolff III: "Re: Recommended Video Card" 
    Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 12:00:01 -0400
To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@redhat.com>

    Jack Howarth wrote:

    > Well things seem stable now. I can do a complete
    >shutdown to a powered off state and restart with
    >the bootloader being found in the MBR now as well
    >as a warm reboot. At this point I am wondering if
    >the stage2 error I initially saw might have been
    >related to the machine attempting to boot off of
    >the second SATA drive at /dev/sdb in the RAID-1
    >array (due to the first not coming up for some
    >reason). If that is the case it would suggest
    >the Tux Tip for making the second drive bootable
    >may not really work.
    > Also I am still very concerned about this
    >issue of grub-install not being able to write
    >the MBR for RAID-1 drives after the initial
    >installation. This really needs to be addressed
    >for FC3. Otherwise what options to I have if
    >my MBR gets managled other than resorting to a
    >clean install of FC2? Blah.
    > Jack
    >ps On the positive side I did see the resync of
    >the two drives after I finally got the RAID-1
    >to boot again so I know the RAID-1 really works
    >(grin).
    >
    >
    >
    >
    The procedure has been tested to work fine on scsi and ide drives with
    earlier RH9 and FC1 installations.
    And it has been tested with ide drives so far on FC2.
    By tested I mean follow the procedure, shutdown, remove one disk, boot
    at least to the grub menu, shutdown, swap which disk is removed, boot at
    least to the grub menu again. If you power down at the grub menu the
    status of raid partitions is unaltered so everything remains in sync
    when you subsequently boot with both drives installed.

    So either the procedure was not adapted to your configuration correctly,
    or this is a new SATA related issue, or something more complex was
    happening with your hardware.

    I can verify your procedure if you provide a copy of your grub.conf and
    what commands you used.
    Any SATA or hardware related issues will require someone else's help. I
    don't have that on any machines here yet.
    You could however follow the same testing process I described above to
    establish whether the MBR on both drives is correctly initialized for
    grub to locate stage2 files in /boot.

    Chris 

    -- 
-----------------------------------------------------------
   "Spend less!  Do more!  Go Open Source..." -- Dirigo.net
   Chris Johnson, RHCE #807000448202021
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