[clue-tech] RH 7.3 on PowerEdge 6450

[David Anselmi]

Jack Parker wrote:
> Not done by a long shot, but I'll post status.  Spent yesterday morning on
> this.  Might get another window Monday night.
> 
> If you've got an answer for anything here I'd love to hear it, otherwise I'm
> just keeping a log so that others can google my mistakes.  I cannot claim to
> be a linux sysadmin, just another twiddler.

By any chance did you go into the RAID BIOS utility and set up the RAID 
before you tried to see it with Linux?

The PERCs I've done on Windows work like this:

Boot the machine (no OS installed).  At the BIOS prompt push the magic 
button (ctl-a or m or whatever it tells you).  You get the RAID setup 
utility where you divide the RAID into the logical drives you want and 
assign disks to the drives or hot spare.

Once that's done reboot from the Win install CD.  Then Windows sees the 
logical drives as C:, D:, etc.  There's fancy PERC software you can load 
after Windows is up but that isn't necessary for basic functionality.

I'd think Linux is the same--set up the RAID in the BIOS and use 
sda[1-n] (or whatever comes up).  (udev might be nice for that, but I 
guess the kernel driver messages should give you a hint).

The idea (at a basic level) is that the controller should hide the RAID 
hardware and just show you logical drives.

The Dell CD that helps you set up the machine for install has a simpler 
interface to the RAID.  You just pick what logical drives and sizes you 
want.  BTW, the CDs Dell was shipping 6 mo. or so ago booted you to Red 
Hat.  FWIW.

Hope that helps, and if not sorry for being so verbose.

Dave