RAID Array (Hardware)

From SlackWiki

[edit] My Card Is In, Now What?

1) SET UP THE ARRAY- If you are using a hardware RAID card (like ones made by 3ware), on boot you must enter the card's BIOS and set up your array. This is done by hitting a hotkey (ALT-3 for 3ware cards). Read your card's instructions for details on how to configure your array.

2) BOOT WITH THE CORRECT KERNEL- After you have set up your array, boot the computer with the Slackware Install CD (CD1) like normal. At the boot: prompt, choose a RAID supporting image (e.g. raid.s). YOU CAN NOT USE THE DEFAULT KERNEL (bare.i) to boot into set-up, you have to use a boot kernel that supports RAID arrays.

EXAMPLE: boot: raid.s

3) PROCEED NORMALLY- Once you boot the RAID kernel, everything else proceeds normally except the hard-drive is (usually) /dev/sda. Go ahead set up your partitions (fdisk /dev/sda) and continue the normal Slackware install.

[edit] FAQs

Q: What device is my RAID array?
A: You are most likely running RAID.S kernel so therefore it is probably /dev/sda

Q: It's not /dev/sda where is it really?
A: I don't know. Reboot your machine and watch the messages scroll by. If you don't see the info, you don't have RAID support compiled into your kernel or as a module and you need to fix that.

Q: My system has a forced fsck and it starts but after awhile, it resets and re-boots. How do I fix this?
A: Re-boot the system using a Slackware install CD (make sure you boot with a RAID kernel) then get to a command line prompt and manually run fsck.

EXAMPLE: fsck -p /dev/sda1

Q: I'm trying to run fsck manually but I get an "The superblock cannot be read..." error. How do I fix this?
A: MOST LIKELY, you're not running a RAID supporting kernel. Re-boot and choose a RAID kernel like raid.s.

Q: I'm running fsck manually and I am getting a "error allocating inode bitmap (2)". How do I fix this?
A: No clue. I haven't been able to find out what that means. If you do, let us know please.