Strange ATARAID format?

[Martin Sandaas]

Hi all!

Not sure if this is the right place, as it might also just be a hardware
issue, an installer issue...or maybe just me ;)

I've been trying to setup software RAID on this mother board: Asus P5Q.  It
has (according to lspci) an Intel 82801 SATA RAID controller.
This controller has 3 settings in the BIOS:
1. Use as RAID
2. Use as IDE
3. Use as AHCI

I already had a working WinXP install on a RAID0 setup.  But I wanted linux,
so I went into the BOOT ROM screen (<CTL> + <I> during boot) and reset the
RAID settings (to single disks).
Then I went into the BIOS and changed the controller setup to AHCI, as I
understood it had a performance advantage over IDE mode.

When I booted Sabayon 4.0 x86_64 LiveDVD, the disks came up normally (I
thought), but although I was able to change the pratition table, nothing got
"stuck" after a reboot.
I then noticed that my previous RAID setup was detected, and activated as a
VIA "FAKERAID" setup.  And whatever I did, this setup was detected and
activated.

So I eventually gave up on the AHCI approach, but then I read somewhere that
the Intel RAID setup was infact using AHCI too.
I changed the settings back to RAID, and created a striped set on my 2x
Raptor disks.  And what do you know, this was also detected at boot.
But this time the format was detected as both VIA and ISW, but the
device-mapper chose ISW (which I think is the right one).

So here's my questions:
1. Why are both VIA and ISW detected on this chipset (ICH10R), but only VIA
when setup as AHCI (shouldn't it be ISW if any)?
2. And can I somehow force the format to be set as ISW (and suppress the VIA
format completely)?  (Recompile kernel module without VIA support?)
3. Is the AHCI setup in BIOS supposed to be forced as RAID, or are you
supposed to be able to use the disks as single disks?  (I can't setup any
RAID in BIOS when using AHCI)

As it is now, I'm completely unable to address my disks as /dev/sda and
/dev/sdb, and have to use /dev/mapper/isw_cbbdijaach_Sabayon (when RAID is
setup in the BIOS) or /dev/mapper/via_<something> when RAID is disabled in
BIOS.

There's no problems using the current setup (ISW RAID), and I guess I could
disable the device-mapper completely in order to access the single disks.
4. But is there a way to enable dmraid, but force no auto detection of
previous setup?  Even if I choose "Setup as IDE" in compatible mode, the
previous RAID setup is detected and setup as VIA RAID.

It seems like a short time since I was unable to use the "FAKE" RAID setup
of my motherboard, but now I seem to be unable to stop it ;)

Cheers,
Martin

PS! Sorry if this is a noob question in the wrong maling list :)
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