Promise RAID problems

From: Terence Parker (tparker_at_nospam.deltapath.com)
Date: 10/03/03 

Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 14:24:54 +0800

I am trying to setup Gentoo Linux 1.4 on a PC with the Asus PC-DL Deluxe
motherboard - on a SATA RAID 1 configuration (two identical 80gb HDD's
defined as a single RAID using the onboard Promise PDC20378 controller). I
am experiencing a few problems.

Previously (i.e. a few weeks ago) I managed to setup a system fitted with an
Asus A7V8 mainboard - which uses the PDC20376 controller. Only slight
difference, but I got it working - also with two 80gb SATA discs. The driver
which I used for installation is compiled from source - but not included
with the kernel. Nonetheless, using an initrd I have got that system to
work.

Now, with this new machine and different promise controller - I can't get it
to work. The driver i'm using is the same as the above (it claims to support
the 20378 too), and indeed I am able to 'insmod' it, fun cfdisk, and
practically install the whole system with no problems. It evidently it DOES
work - only, when I come to running lilo -v, I get errors:

    LILO version 22.5.1, Copyright (C) 1992-1998 Werner Almesberger
    Development beyond version 21 Copyright (C) 1999-2003 John Coffman
    Released 28-Mar-2003 and compiled at 19:57:43 on Oct 3 2003.

    raid_setup returns offset = 00000000 ndisk = 0
    BIOS Volume S/N Device
    Reading boot sector from /dev/sda
    Fatal: Device 0x0800: Maximum number of sectors is 63, not 222

I have tried various force methods to no avail. Unless perhaps i'm missing a
particular force method!

Other noticable differences between my two systems lie in the output from
'cfdisk' - the older machine which works shows Sectors per Track: 63
Cylinders: 9726 .... whilst the newer (non-working) system shows Sectors per
Track: 30 Cylinders: 20424. Both use the same model HDD's.... but I can
understand these varying due to a different RAID setup.

What I don't understand however is why this new system won't work.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

Terence Parker

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