RAID and FC5 Installation Problems

[Hassan Dar]

Hi everyone.

 

I've been having endless headaches with the FC5 installation. I've managed
to get most of them sorted but I'm now really stumped.

 

Well I was having the common problem of the install hanging at the X Server
screen with a black background and 'X' Cursor. I used the 'linux
nodmraid'
at the boot prompt and it successfully got me to the GUI. However, I am
trying to install on a RAID 0 partition and as you can see, if I use
'nodmraid' I can't activate my RAID partition for the installer to see.
I'm
at a loss for what to do I can't see any other option as dmraid would be
needed to actually show RAID files but at the same time I need to get to the
GUI Installer!

 

Here are a few things to note:

 

Text install DOES NOT WORK It has the same problem as the GUI install, it
works only if I use 'nodmraid'.

 

I have tried the 'linux vesa' command which is a common fix to the black
screen and x cursor problem. However, If I boot with this command, when X
server starts up my monitor gives a 'No Signal' message.

 

I am installing the x86_64 release of FC5 and I DO have a 64-bit processor.

 

All 6 discs of my installation media have been SHA1SUM verified and are all
complete.

 

I burned the media first as a simulation at the slowest speed possible on my
drive (8x 1,200kb/s) and then I used nero to verify the data. Passes all
tests.

 

With DMA turned off (with the ide=nodma command) the CD media all pass the
mediacheck test.

 

I have been trying to do a Hard Drive install but can burn the discs if this
will cause complications.

 

I have tried running the dmraid -v -ay command as soon as the GUI appears,
but this does not do anything.

 

I have two RAID 0 Arrays, Array 1 is comprised of two identical 160GB
Seagate SATA drives, Array 2 is comprised of three identical 40GB Seagate
IDE/ATA Drives. I do not wish to install anything on the SATA RAID array as
it is for storage only, I wish to install fedora core on the IDE/ATA Array.
Both of these Arrays work fine under Windows XP Professional so I know my
Arrays are fine.

 

My RAID is configured by the onboard nForce 4 RAID controller also known as
software or fake RAID.

 

I have used the 'dmraid -v -ay' command and then used 'ls /dev/mapper/'
to
verify my drives were all there, linux correctly indentifies them with this
command.

 

Here are my system specs:

 

Processor: AMD Opteron 148 - Venus Core (64-Bit Processor)

RAM: 1024MB PC3200 DDR RAM

Video Card: ATI RADEON x800GTO2

Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo4-F (nForce 4 Chipset)

SATA Hard Drive: 2x Seagate Barracuda 160GB (RAID 0 Array 1)

ATA Hard Drive: 3x Seagate 40GB (RAID 0 Array 2)

Monitor: Acer 19" Widescreen LCD (1440x900 Native Res)

 

I posted a few threads on Fedora Forums which might a give a bit more
insight into the problem:

 

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=107352

 

and

 

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=107567

 

 

 

I would be very grateful to anyone who could help me, I've posted on fedora
forums but no one was able to help me sort it out. I have also tried the
fedora IRC community who also could not help me. Thank you for your time.