Re: Booting from a PCI SATA card ( it works! )

I did a few tests on my new server. Looks like everything is working. I
did run into a small problem. I added a second PCI SATA card and the
system wouldn't boot. Take the card out and the system boots. I wanted
to add a second PCI SATA card so I could add a hot spare. I guess that's
not going to happen. AT some point I may need to get that 4 port 3ware
RAID card.

Time to rsync my data over. :-)

Damien Hull wrote:
> Leif Sawyer wrote:
>
>> mike figley continued the thread where
>>
>>
>>> Damien Hull wrote asking:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I'm trying to boot from a PCI SATA card and it's not
>>>> working. Here's what happens.
>>>>
>>>> 1. Grub comes up
>>>> 2. It runs through a few lines until it gets to "boot"
>>>> 3. The system reboots
>>>>
>>>> I did a quick Google search and found a website that says you
>>>> can't boot from a PCI SATA card. It has something to do with
>>>> the BIOS not seeing the card/drives. The BIOS is unable to
>>>> pass the information to linux/grub.
>>>>
>>>> Can someone tell me if this is true? I thought about
>>>> getting a couple of IDE drives to boot from but I don't want
>>>> to spend any money if I don't have to.
>>>>
>>>> I'll be running a few tests tonight. If I find out anything
>>>> new I'll post it on the list.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> 2 things i would try:
>>>
>>> 1) From bios setup see if you can enable something such as
>>> "boot offboard cards first" or enable booting from "SCSI"
>>> first.
>>>
>>> 2) Boot a live distro, and look at dmesg or /var/log/messages
>>> to see if your SATA get detected and if so, which driver
>>> gets assigned. I think latest Vector and Puppy releases and others
>>> have some SATA support builtin.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I used the Adaptec 1210SA sata card for about 18 months.
>> booted every time on my circa-1997 P3-1000 system.
>>
>> my bios just saw it as a 'scsi' adapter, and didn't have any issues
>> passing control over to it. Yep, I needed an initrd with my driver
>> in there (stupid redhat only binary driver stupid adaptec stupidity)
>> but it did work in raid mode like that - yes, even though it was
>> really software raid. Yes, I finally gave up on it and pulled it
>> out of my system.
>>
>> I'm now using... uh... Wait, don't tell me... umm.. Ooh! hold on,
>> I can remote in, because I left the system on. heheh..
>> Ah, yes.. it's a 3ware Escalade 7000/8000 sata raid.
>>
>> But it's a nice hw-raid sata pci card. Very nice. and no more
>> binary drivers, and no more initrd, because the drivers are
>> built into the kernel and fully open. woo!
>>
>> My bioses are only ever set to boot "external first"
>>
>>
>> -- Binary/unsupported file stripped by Ecartis --
>> -- Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature
>> -- File: smime.p7s
>>
>>
>> ---------
>> To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
>> with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
>>
>>
>>
> She boots!
>
> You may be on to something here. I was trying to install on an old
> compaq. I couldn't get it to work. I just switched to a P4 something. It
> boots software RAID 1. The drives are syncing as I type.
>
> The BIOS in this system has more options. One of them is SCSI. There is
> also "Other". I'm not sure what that means but I included it in the boot
> order. I'm not sure if any of this makes a difference but the system boots.
>
> I'm not sure how stable this system is. The plan was to migrate all my
> data to it. With all the trouble I've been having I'm not sure I want to
> do that. I'll run a few tests before I put it into production.
>
> Oh, don't know which 3ware card you have but I've seen 4 port ones for
> $140 or so. One of my clients has the top of the line version. It can
> take 16 drives. The command line interface is a little tricky to use but
> it shows you a lot of information. I was thinking about getting the 4
> port version. However, my important data only took up 16G of space.
> Can't justify spending extra money for drive space I may not use.
>
> Well, time to pay with my new RAID set.
> ---------
> To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
> with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
>
>

---------
To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
Received on Thu Dec 21 13:53:14 2006