RHEL4 install format problem on Dell PowerEdge w/PERC RAID

[Rick Stevens]

On Mon, 2006-07-17 at 11:51 -0400, Thomas Walter wrote:
> I decided to install RHEL4 update 3 on a Dell PowerEdge 2400 that was 
> running RH9. This machine has hardware RAID 5. The machine can't format 
> the / (root) partition. I've tried RHEL 4 update 2 and 3 and Fedora 5. 
> RHEL4 update 3 hangs in graphic mode but shows multiple error messages in 
> text mode. RHEL 4 update 2 and FC5 come back with the following error 
> message:
> 
> A error occurred trying to format VolGroup/LogVol00 (which is root). This 
> problem is serious and the install cannot continue. I tried deleting the 
> LVM related info in the next install and just use the hard disk info but 
> received they same error with sda3. 
> 
> I'm not sure where to go from here. Any suggestions?

Well, the LVM doesn't surprise me.  RH9 and FC1 have a 2.4 kernel and
use LVM1.  RHEL4 and FC2-5 have a 2.6 kernel and use LVM2.  LVM1 and
LVM2 are NOT compatible.

However, you killed off LVM and you're still having problems.  It sounds
a bit like the RAID is having issues.  You said it's in hardware RAID
5.  Are you certain the RAID isn't running in degraded mode?  If it's
OK, then you may have to do something drastic such as stomp on the
partition table in rescue mode and start from scratch.

To stomp on the partition table, boot in rescue mode ("linux rescue"
at the "boot:" prompt off CD1).  Do NOT let the system try to mount
the existing system, then:

	# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

That should wipe your partition table completely.  Then try to install
normally (you can even try LVM2 stuff at that point).

----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-           If it's stupid and it works...it ain't stupid!           -
----------------------------------------------------------------------