ThunderRd Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 This is my first Linux installation, so I need some help. I have an installation of XP on a SATA RAID0 array. I have installed Mandriva 2007 on the primary IDE master. When installing I expected to be given an option to install the GRUB or LILO bootloader in the MBR, but wasn't given this choice. Mandriva simply asked me which bootloader I wished to install (I selected GRUB) and on which drive or partition. I looked in the list to install on the windows RAID0. All other drives on the machine were listed, but not the RAID. I thought that by installing it there it would be easiest, because the BIOS would look there first. Without the choice to install to the MBR I installed to the LINUX install drive (the primary IDE) thinking that if I set the BIOS to look there first, GRUB would take over. Then I could edit GRUB somehow to allow me to boot into XP as I wished. I believe that my homework has shown me that people have done it both ways. I set the BIOS to boot from the IDE drive. When I attempt to boot, I see the GRUB menu. But Mandriva does not start. It simply hangs at the next screen, which (I think?) has a progress bar at the bottom. I can, of course, boot into Windows ok after setting the BIOS boot selection back to the RAID. But can't do anything to edit GRUB from windows. I tried booting again to the install CD and using the "reinstall bootloader" option. This had the same result. I can do anything that you recommend, short of breaking my windows installation. This is a first time user's problem, I'm sure, and ther eis no sensitive data to protect. The entire IDE drive is for LINUX, and I can repartition, reformat, or whatever. No problem. Can anyone give me a hand? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 This may be interesting. First, beware that when you change the boot order in the bios, you are affecting the drive ID information in the Linux installation. For example, hda is the primary master boot device. When you change this in the bios, hda changes, making the fstab invalid. So, the critical file, /etc/fstab, does not have the correct information for the system. The fix I would make would be to boot with a live disk and edit the /etc/fstab file to reflect the ide boot. I would recommend, however, to install without having to go to the bios all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderRd Posted December 29, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 This may be interesting. First, beware that when you change the boot order in the bios, you are affecting the drive ID information in the Linux installation. For example, hda is the primary master boot device. When you change this in the bios, hda changes, making the fstab invalid. So, the critical file, /etc/fstab, does not have the correct information for the system. The fix I would make would be to boot with a live disk and edit the /etc/fstab file to reflect the ide boot. I would recommend, however, to install without having to go to the bios all the time. Thanks, Ix, for the quick response. I may not know as much as you think that I know, though. I'm a fairly advanced Windows user but have little knowledge of Linux. ;) 1- Are you saying that Linux won't boot because I changed the boot device in the BIOS? When I installed, the BIOS boot device was the VIA RAID0 device. Of course, it didn't boot then because GRUB installed to the Linux drive. So when I changed the boot device to the primary IDE what happened? 2- I'm pretty sure that the installation of Linux is intact and good. There were no errors and it seemed to finish properly, asking to reboot to complete. Is this a bad assumption? 3- Can I do what you are suggesting with the install DVDs? If so, please tell me exactly how? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 1) Yes, the installation identifies the system at the time of install, which it gets from the bios. If the RAID is hardware, then Linux does fine. But software RAID does not present a true RAID array in the hardware, and thus Linux does not see the RAID array; instead, it sees different drives. Further more, Linux is not part of the RAID array. So, we are asking the software RAID to relinquish control after booting. (Hmmm....) It may be best to use the bios for this. 2) I agree that Linux is installed on your primary ide device (hda). Because of the above considerations, I think you should download a "live" distro. This is a distro that works from the cd drive and RAM. You can then edit the /etc/fstab to be sure it is correct for booting from the ide drive. 3) You can edit with the dvd, but it is not really newbie friendly. Get a live cd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderRd Posted December 30, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2007 (edited) 1) Yes, the installation identifies the system at the time of install, which it gets from the bios. If the RAID is hardware, then Linux does fine. But software RAID does not present a true RAID array in the hardware, and thus Linux does not see the RAID array; instead, it sees different drives. Further more, Linux is not part of the RAID array. So, we are asking the software RAID to relinquish control after booting. (Hmmm....) It may be best to use the bios for this. Did I give you the impression that it's a software RAID? Didn't mean to. It's through the VIA chipset on the MB. Purely hardware. Has something gone wrong? 2) I agree that Linux is installed on your primary ide device (hda). Because of the above considerations, I think you should download a "live" distro. This is a distro that works from the cd drive and RAM. You can then edit the /etc/fstab to be sure it is correct for booting from the ide drive. That being said, would it be easier to reinstall Linux onto the RAID0 along with Windows? I know that there are setup options to use the free space on the Windows drive. I used another drive simply because I felt safer with the Linux partitions on a separate drive, but it's not necessary. 3) You can edit with the dvd, but it is not really newbie friendly. Get a live cd. I'll get one in any case, sounds like a good idea. I have an Ubuntu Live CD in the house, would that do? EDIT: Have found this while doing my *homework* on another forum. Is it of use to us? "you can install linux with this setup, to dual boot with win you have to use the grub boot manager. after linux is successfully installed you manually add these lines to grubs menu.lst: title Windows XP root (hd1) map (hd0) (hd1) map (hd1) (hd0) chainloader +1 savedefault boot this will boot win from your sata raid. the ide with linux must be the first in your boot priority. if you want to be sure that linux doesn't mess up the xp installation you can just disconnect the harddisks during installation. ps: don't forget the spaces between (hd0) (hd1) and (hd1) (hd0). without it didn't work on my system" This was responding to another user who had windows on a RAID0, and wanted to install linux. EDIT #2: I have installed Mandriva again, and removed the RAID array for less confusion. The BIOS was set to point to the Primary IDE. Only the Primary IDE is active, but linux still won't boot. I have managed to find the GRUB editor by pressing "e". Here are the lines for linux: kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 resume=/dev/hda5 initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img Can you take a look and see why it will not start from the primary IDE? I wrote GRUB to that drive when I installed, and all of the linux partitions are on that drive. Edited December 30, 2007 by ThunderRd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 30, 2007 Report Share Posted December 30, 2007 When Mandirva is loading, at what point is it stopping? Hit escape to see. what is the name/model of your motherboard or computer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderRd Posted December 30, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2007 After the bootloader, all I see is the Mandriva load screen, there is a progress bar at the bottom left which never moves. There is no disk activity after this screen appears. No text that I can pause to let you know what you want. Sorry I can't be more helpful. It's an ASUS A8N32-SLI with Opteron 185. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 30, 2007 Report Share Posted December 30, 2007 Are you running SLI? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderRd Posted December 30, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2007 (edited) Not at this time but have the hardware to do so when time allows. Right now this machine is the Internet gateway for my office network; not much time for games ;) Incidentally I came across a Knoppix Live CD here in case it helps. Edited December 30, 2007 by ThunderRd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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