Topic: Disabling / configuring RAID (SME7.0Pre1)

[Garfield]

Hi,

I'm a long time SME user, and since two weeks I'm experimenting with SME7.0Pre1.

I have searched this site back and forth, but I cannot find anything about how to disable / configure the RAID options.

I *really* don't want my disks set up in a RAID configuration, so I want to disable this feature.

Any help is greatly appreciated !

[Reinhold]

Garfield,

If you have looked around you should have noticed that you cannot circumvent the RAID1 setup on install
(unless you write your own kickstart file that is)

(While I do not understand anyone that relies on a server without Raid security...)
You can always "just install with one electrically active HD".
This gives you a degraded RAID1 on a single disk (no harm, no speed disadvantage).
After SME installation is finished, you may then activate/install additional HDs just as you used to do before... (see add Disk HowTo)

So basically then it's all as it used to be ...

Regards
Reinhold

[Garfield]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I had looked around and indeed found that RAID could not be circumvented at install. So far so good.

However, when I subsequently shut the system down, plugged one of my other hd's in again and restarted, the kernel paniced right away.

So ... I was looking for a way around this.

The only add disk howto I know and have used on SME6 is Michiel Blotwijk's one : http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php/extra%20hard%20disk . But that would help nothing with respect to RAID configuration.

Or have I missed a new howto ?

[CharlieBrady]

However, when I subsequently shut the system down, plugged one of my other hd's in again and restarted, the kernel paniced right away.

I would guess that is because your newly added drive is being detected as the first drive, not the second.

If you provide more details of your drive setups and your kernel panic, someone might be able to help you. Or you might spot something relevant yourself.

[Garfield]

Hi,

I'm using a simple set of IDE disks.

The hd I installed SME on is master on the primary controller, the hd I reconnected after install was slave on the primary controller.

On the secondary controller the cdrom is master and as slave I have a third hd, but I have not dared to reconnect that one since my experience with the slave hd on the primary controller  

BTW All 3 hd's are of a different size.

I don't have the details of the panic anymore, but I could always try again to reconnect the 2nd hd and see what happens ... ?

But still, if there's no way to manually reconfigure the raid options, I assume that the software will always try to create a raid set upon detecting more than one hd ?

In the end, I want to run the system with these 3 hd's operating independently from each other, so ...

[Garfield]

I solved the problem, this post is to help other people that might run into this problem too.

I removed all partitions on both hd's present in the system,
powered off,
disconnected the 2nd hd,
powered on,
installed the SME software,
powered off,
reconnected the 2nd hd,
powered on,
... no problem !

I guess what went wrong the first time is that the software somehow tried to create a RAID1 set on both hd's, which failed but left some partitions on the disks, which generated problems upon a subsequent installation, with just the 1st hd connected.

I have not recreated a partition on the 2nd hd yet, but I'm confident that this will workd, as it has always worked in the past.

I'm happy now, this calls for