LL 2.0 install on AMD A6/A88 machine W/RAID 1 - LL Installer Crashes

[Scott(0)]

Rentwist, so now that's it's working, what was the fix?

[rentwist]

Nearly as I can tell, the USB live media.

[rentwist]

Having trouble with mdadm though, appears that it is more than just mdadm --create as the post on askubuntu I was following indicates.

Anyone familiar with mdadm who could provide some guidance?  Fresh LL install with two 2TB disks visible, sda and sdb.  Hoping I do not have to start the OS install over (and had tried that unsuccessfully previously with BIOS RAID) but am willing to do whatever it takes!

Regards,

Robert

[rentwist]

Thinking I am going to need to boot from live USB and start over after implementing mdadm (will it be preserved with a fresh LL install afterwards?).  There is quite a bit more to it than what I read up until now led me to believe:

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-creat...ne-arrays/

[rentwist]

Made good progress with mdadm after booting from live usb image and following the guide I linked to.  Volumes are syncing now (long process).  The fstab and mdadm.conf updates would not save, guessing because those files were active with the OS and changes to them could not be saved therefore.  Saved copies to the desktop in hopes of ultimately replacing them on the final LL install.

However, did some more research and am not convinced that the A88X Bolton D4 RAID implementation is not a hardware based RAID and therefore more desirable/better performing than Linux soft RAID using mdadm.  To that end, wondering if a LL install over the AMD BIOS RAID would work if I used Linux LVM.  No clue but I am searching for the right answer (best performance in a RAID1 implementation).  As I posted previously, RAID did not work otherwise, the LL install broke the array/partitioning done with AMD BIOS RAID.

Would love some input from others who have successfully navigated this precarious path but guess I am doing alright with researching and trying things based on what I find.

Regards,

Robert

[rentwist]

Selecting LVM after setting up AMD BIOS RAID did not work, or at least errors out and prevents proceeding, will post that error.

The mdadm did not work (at least yet), got it all going with the live USB (and waited the 4-5 hours for the sync) but when I went and did the install of the OS, it broke the SW raid and the OS complained about a "recursive partition" or some such on both disks.  If I end up having to go with mdadm RAID, I guess the next thing to try is to install the OS and then do the many commands (in the link I posted previously) to get mdadm going on top of the installed OS.  I did try this initially but had permission problems.  When I encountered this I thought it was because the partition was in use by the OS, thinking now it might be a sudo thing or require root access (which I had to do for mdadm at some point during the process with the live USB, I forget what specifically).

Still hoping there is a way to make the BIOS RAID work but I am out of ideas for things to try.  The OS install overwrites the partitioning the BIOS RAID creates which breaks the array.

Frustrating.

[rentwist]

Guess like Billy Idol, I am dancing with myself!  :'(

Had no luck with BIOS RAID and no luck creating mdadm RAID with one of the disks having an LL install present.  Trying live USB setup of mdadm (again) and hoping that there is some way to tell LL to install on logical drive md0 instead of one of the disks themselves.

[Scott(0)]

Hi Rentwist

I poked around the ASRock website and found the following on the FM2A88M Extreme 4+. Maybe something below will be helpful?

Are you running the current BIOS?
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/FM2A88M%20E...ad&os=BIOS

Is the ASRock RAID guide any help?
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/FM2A88M%20E...cat=Manual

Support page for the FM2A88M Extreme 4+
http://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/FM2A88M%20E...t=Download

[rentwist]

Hi Scott,

Yes, I updated to the current BIOS last week.

Regarding the other two suggestions, I have the RAID installation guide and the AMD BIOS guide as well, been all over, up and down the ASRock support stuff.

I have given up on the BIOS RAID thing and am concentrating on the Linux SoftRAID stuff using mdadm.  Repeated the mdadm stuff I did previously (link I posted a guide to), got my two disks in an array and let them sync (a 4 hour or so process), this was while booted from the live USB and preinstall.

BTW, If LL is installed on one of the disks, mdadm complains and will not proceed, guessing that is because the OS is currently using the disk or partition on it.  That is why I used the live USB and performed mdadm installation steps BEFORE installing LL.

Okay, so now I am at the LL install beginning steps and trying to figure out how to get LL to install on logical drive raid1.  The installer complains "No root file system defined.  Please correct this in the partitioning menu."  The current partition is a ext3 partition (I think) and marked for RAID (0xfd type using fdisk).

So I need to make two new (additional?) partitions, one for root and one for swap.  Can anyone give me their partitions sizes for these on their LL installation?  Use ext4?  Preferably on a 2 TB drive (assuming this might make a difference).  One posting I found says 10 Gb min for root and 2-4 Gb for swap.  I seem to recall (from my many LL install attempts) something like 23.xx Gb for root (or was it 32.xx Gb?) and not sure for swap.  Also wondering if I can do this when the current partition is using all available space.  Will Gparted pull from the existing one to provide space for the two I need to create?  Also, seem to recall that the partitions were numbered sda5 for the swap, not sure for the root, sda2?  Root needs to be mounted as "/" I read.

I am feeling my way along in the dark here as a relatively newbie to Linux and LL but think I am on the right track.  I just don't want to blow away my m