Here i go again, Linux what flavour? - Page 5

Mark · 29-10-2007, 01:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeperousDust

Mark, i've set in the BIOS the only hard drive to boot from is the "first" sammy drive which i installed linux on, so would that be passed to the grub loader at all? Hmmm gonna crack the case open see what happens then i guess, loads of hassle though the sata connections are so badly designed, it infuriates me!

The problem here is that GRUB has it's own way of detecting hard disks which isn't the same as the BIOS, so what might be the first disk in the BIOS might be the second, third, fourth or whatever disk in GRUB, especially with so many different controllers in that system).

If fiddling with the connectors doesn't help, there are some commands you can from the LiveCD which should help track this down, but fiddling with MBRs is a task for when one is awake, especially if any of the disks contain data you might want to keep.

Incidentally, you can't blame Linux for this particular problem - Windows is prone to it as well.

LeperousDust · 29-10-2007, 01:37

Right reinstalling ubuntu (thank god its so easy this far) again but with one sammy unplugged. It didn't work uplugging and switching etc... the sammys.

Dr. Z · 29-10-2007, 01:39

Do this (as root):

Check the boot partition is active/bootable by using fdisk from the LiveCD

Check that Grub is installed right by using grub-installer

EDIT:

Ah, too late

If your reinstall doesn't work then as Mark says, we are into a land of joy with your grub conf, although your problems will be down to the sheer number of drives in your system I would bet!

Mark · 29-10-2007, 01:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by starscream

With a software RAID, you are relient on the OS. If your OS gets so messed up you can't boot or recover then even with no hardware failures on the drives you are going to lose your data.

In Windows, yes (well, you might be able to get your data back if the particular combination of drivers and sacrificial goats happens to please Bill Gates on that particular day), but with mdraid, the worst you'll have to do is re-install Linux and mdraid, and run a few commands to help Linux re-discover the array configuration.

Dr. Z · 29-10-2007, 01:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark

In Windows, yes (well, you might be able to get your data back if the particular combination of drivers and sacrificial goats happens to please Bill Gates on that particular day), but with mdraid, the worst you'll have to do is re-install Linux and mdraid, and run a few commands to help Linux re-discover the array configuration.

I was just about to edit my post to make that a bit more clear - cheers Mark!

Saved me a job

Starscream: Yes, these fakeraid controllers aren't actually RAID controllers at all - just a HDD controller with a trick BIOS and as such are totally useless!

Chuckles · 29-10-2007, 01:46

That's pretty cool!

I tend to pull 1 drive out of the OS mirror before doing any software or OS updates. That way if there is an issue, you just uplug it and put the other one back in.

If it is as easy as that to pull the config back in from linux then that's a considerable advantage over windows in your situation with that kind of hardware

Dr. Z · 29-10-2007, 01:49

You are right, it is pretty cool!

If you think thats cool though, you should look at ZFS. Its absolutely astonishing! It doesn't just run on Solaris either, but at the moment the non-solaris variants are a bit like the early days of read/write NTFS support. Its being actively developed though, so I expect good things soon and as soon as it becomes speedy you can be damn sure I will be putting my data onto a ZFS pool!

As for yanking a drive before an update - surely thats not "best practice"? You should have an up to date backup before you make any changes - so no need to start hot-unplugging drives!!

What if it was in the middle of a write or a sync? Sounds a bit risky to me!

LeperousDust · 29-10-2007, 01:49

Hehe, cheers DRZ, it's going on now, i went the whole i've unplugged everything, there is one drive plugged in my primary OS drive. Thats it, if it fecks up this time i don't think i want to know! If this installs and boots, i'll plug all the others back in a pray

Dr. Z · 29-10-2007, 01:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeperousDust

Hehe, cheers DRZ, it's going on now, i went the whole i've unplugged everything, there is one drive plugged in my primary OS drive. Thats it, if it fecks up this time i don't think i want to know! If this installs and boots, i'll plug all the others back in a pray

Thats not the spirit!

If it doesn't work after an apparently successful installation then it will probably be a simple grub config error (the installer doesn't *always* get things right, unfortunately). Probably fixed in 5 minutes from the LiveCD.

For what you want, Linux is the way forward

Mark · 29-10-2007, 01:56

ZFS is scary. You want petabytes of storage? No problem.

29-10-2007, 01:37	#42
LeperousDust Bananaman Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Liverpool/Edinburgh Posts: 4,817	Right reinstalling ubuntu (thank god its so easy this far) again but with one sammy unplugged. It didn't work uplugging and switching etc... the sammys. __________________

29-10-2007, 01:39	#43
Dr. Z I'm going for a scuttle... Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 2,021	Do this (as root): Check the boot partition is active/bootable by using fdisk from the LiveCD Check that Grub is installed right by using grub-installer EDIT: Ah, too late If your reinstall doesn't work then as Mark says, we are into a land of joy with your grub conf, although your problems will be down to the sheer number of drives in your system I would bet! __________________

29-10-2007, 01:46	#46
Chuckles '09 sexual conquests: 4.5 Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 1,075	That's pretty cool! I tend to pull 1 drive out of the OS mirror before doing any software or OS updates. That way if there is an issue, you just uplug it and put the other one back in. If it is as easy as that to pull the config back in from linux then that's a considerable advantage over windows in your situation with that kind of hardware __________________

29-10-2007, 01:49	#47
Dr. Z I'm going for a scuttle... Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 2,021	You are right, it is pretty cool! If you think thats cool though, you should look at ZFS. Its absolutely astonishing! It doesn't just run on Solaris either, but at the moment the non-solaris variants are a bit like the early days of read/write NTFS support. Its being actively developed though, so I expect good things soon and as soon as it becomes speedy you can be damn sure I will be putting my data onto a ZFS pool! As for yanking a drive before an update - surely thats not "best practice"? You should have an up to date backup before you make any changes - so no need to start hot-unplugging drives!! What if it was in the middle of a write or a sync? Sounds a bit risky to me! __________________

29-10-2007, 01:49	#48
LeperousDust Bananaman Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Liverpool/Edinburgh Posts: 4,817	Hehe, cheers DRZ, it's going on now, i went the whole i've unplugged everything, there is one drive plugged in my primary OS drive. Thats it, if it fecks up this time i don't think i want to know! If this installs and boots, i'll plug all the others back in a pray __________________

29-10-2007, 01:56	#50
Mark Screaming Orgasm Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Newbury Posts: 15,194	ZFS is scary. You want petabytes of storage? No problem.