Promise 378 in RAID mode

[Dan]

Joseph Bridges wrote:
> I am having a problem with the Promise Fasttrak 378 SATA controller.  
> I'd like to dual-boot and use the system in RAID Mode.  When I install 
> RHEL 4 WS update 3, the installer see BOTH drives even though the BIOS 
> has RAID mode selected and the Array had been created in the Fasttrak 
> utility.
>
> I've tried installing on just one of the two drives (/dev/sda) and 
> also using sda and sdb in a md0 software RAID.  Regardless, the 
> systems hangs on boot up right after the NASH entry.  I suspect it 
> can't read the drive(s) becasue the linux fasttrak drivers have no 
> knowledge of the controller's onboard RAID settings.
>
> Has anyone had luck with this configuration?
>
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>
dmraid handles fakeraid setups such as this. Prior to FC5, dmraid was 
not initialized in the boot process, so for example, I installed FC4 on 
a fakeraid array the following way:
1. Install to an alternate non-fakeraid drive.
2. Boot Fedora or rescue mode and start dmraid, then create partitions 
on fakeraid.
3. Move partition contents.
4. Patch mkinitrd and create a new initrd with it.
5. Edit grub.conf and fstab appropriately.
I wrote an FC4-specific version of the guide I used, RHEL4 should be 
very similar:
http://www.fedorasolved.com/viewtopic.php?t=154

FC5 has an installer that initialized dmraid and contains dmraid in 
initrd, so those two main issues are gone, however the 2.6.16 kernel and 
dmraid don't get along well yet :/.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=186842

-Dan