[PLUG] Debian install and RAID 1

[John Jason Jordan]

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:32:51 -0700
John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> dijo:

> Now I'm going to go beat up Debian some more to see if I can figure out
> how to get it to create Raid partitions. :)

Well that didn't go well.

I finally figured out how to create the RAID partitions with the Debian
amd64 installer. That user interface needs serious work. Like scap it
and start over from the beginning. :(

I created a 2 GB swap on sda1 and a 45 GB ext3 partition for / on sda2,
mirrored to their counterparts: sdb1 and sdb2. After I finally
successfully created them the install utility proceeded to install the
rest of Debian Etch -- three hours downloading. When it finished it
prompted to restart the computer. When the computer restarted I got a
lot of stuff, ending in:

RPL-ROM-ADR: 0050 8DCA 55FF
RPL-ROM-IRQ: 10
RPL-ROM-PIO: CC00
RPL-ROM-FFC: 1 (which added 1 to the number every second or so until it
hit 50, then the computer hung.)

The above appeared before Grub or anything related to Linux started to
appear. I don't know where to look to find out what it means. But my
guess is that it means something couldn't find an OS to boot to.

So then I tried the Ubuntu Feisty amd64 beta that I downloaded this
morning. What I didn't realize as I was downloading it was that the
Alternate CD is not a live/install CD -- it is install only. OK, fine.
Debian Etch is hosed anyway, so I decided to go ahead and install
Feisty. But that went no better. Worse, in fact. I couldn't get past
the partitioning part. It refused to delete the Debian RAID partitions
and it refused to use them. There was an option to reformat them, but
it errored out.

For my next exercise I used a Knoppix live CD, intending to see if I
could find /boot/grub/menu.lst. And it turned out to be right where it
is supposed to be. That is, on the Knoppix desktop there are four items
(the two hard disks are matching Western Digital 320 GB SATAII disks):
two icons for WDC3200 which are sda1 and sdb1 (the swap), and two icons
labled WDC3200 for sda2 and sdb2 (the root partition). And menu.lst is
right there on sda2 and sdb2 in /boot/grub. The menu items are:

title	Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-4-amd64
root	(hd0,1)
kernel:	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-4-amd64 root=/dev/md1 ro
initrd	/boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-4-amd64
savedefault

The second one is identical, but it says (single user mode) at the end
of the title line.

I note that it is pointing to /dev/md1, and I recall during the setup
that md1 is what the partition utility called the RAID device. As far
as I can tell the menu.lst entries are correct.

While writing this it occurred to me that the BIOS is not finding the
mbr. But I am not sure what an mbr does, let alone how to fix it. Or if
my supposition is even correct.

I should apply for university credit for all I am learning. :) 

Before I wipe out everything and start over yet again, suggestions
would be welcome.