Insatalling fedora alongside windows7 in a RAID0 array

iamgenius · #1 2nd November 2011, 01:46 PM

Hi folks. This is my first time trying to install fedora. I know little when it comes to linux.

I download the full fedora DVD and booted from it. I think I wouldn't have problems if I'm doing the very normal way....it is my RAID array that is giving me problems. Here is what happens, the installation begins and all is well except that when it is time to select my installation drive, the RAID array doesn't appear. If I choose the advanced mode, this message will appear:

"Disks sda and sdb contain BIOS RAID metadate, but are not part of any recognized BIOS RAID sets, ignoring disks sda, sdb"

So setup kinda of detect my drives but not as one drive. The RAID array wasn't fully recognizable I can say. Doesn't Fedora support RAID installations? Can I download a driver from somewhere? This is software raid of course.

I can of course install fedora into my other drives, but those are for storage purposes and aren't really meant for OS's.

What can I do to successfully dual boot windows 7 and fedora from my RAID0 array?

Here is my rig summary:

Q6600 @ 3.5 GHz + Thermalright ultra 120 extreme with 1.54 Vcore
GA-P35-DQ6 motherboard
2x 2GB PC6400 Patriot extreme performance
2x300 GB Velociraptors in RAID0 for an OS drive
1 TB Hitachi data drive + 2 TB WD data drive
EVGA GTX 460 1024 MB
3D Aurora Gigabyte Case
20x lite-on multi-recorder
PC Power & Cooling 610W PSU
Dell U2711 27" Monitor

Thanks.

iamgenius · #2 5th November 2011, 08:35 AM

Any body encountered such a problem?

Kaustix · #3 6th November 2011, 10:42 PM

I'm having a simmilar problem, i am also using raid 0(windows 7) and a seperate drive for F15, however when i try to install F15 i get a bug error during install that says swap doesnt have enough memory. So i then tried to install via basic video... this works but i cannot boot into fedora (after using easy bcd to point to the boot partition) all i get is a single - that blinks. Now i'm completly at a loss on how to properly install F15 as a dual boot without losing my MBR on windows. Hoping someone could help me here as well, since theres no need to make another post

crokett · #4 7th November 2011, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamgenius

? This is software raid of course.

Software RAID? Sofware RAID is done in the OS - so this means Windows is doing the RAID.
Hardware RAID is done at the RAID Adapter. It has the RAID array and then presents it to the OS as one large disk.

If you really have SW RAID, Fedora won't be able to see a Windows software RAID set any more than Windows would be able to see a Fedora one. Software RAID is built in the OS. If you want to install Fedora alongside Windows your options are to redo the RAID array in Windows and leave space for Fedora, or put Fedora on a different HDD. Personally I wouldn't use a RAID 0 array for anything. Disks are too cheap.

politcallycorrectmadness · #5 8th November 2011, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crokett

If you really have SW RAID, Fedora won't be able to see a Windows software RAID set any more than Windows would be able to see a Fedora one. Software RAID is built in the OS.

Depending on the BIOS style raid (fakeraid) used, Linux and Windows can install on the same software raid array.

The caveat to this is that the particular style of software raid must be supported by the Linux fakeraid subsystem.

The Linux fakeraid subsystem is called dmraid - so you'll need to look up which "fakeraid" controller you have (maybe the hardware info in windows can give you some pointers) and have a quick look on the internet to see if Linux currently talks with/to it.

The fact you don't get the option in the installer to install to this software raid kind of hints it might not be supported.

***glennzo*** · #6 8th November 2011, 07:06 PM

Anything interesting here, http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/...-raid-x86.html ??

crokett · #7 8th November 2011, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by politcallycorrectmadness

Depending on the BIOS style raid (fakeraid) used, Linux and Windows can install on the same software raid array.
.

IF it is anywhere but the OS, it isn't SW RAID. It is HW RAID, even if it isn't on a true RAID controller. If I create a RAID set using mdadm in Linux, even if it is formatted NTFS I am pretty sure Windows can't see the RAID set, though it may be able to see 2 independent drives formatted as NTFS.

politcallycorrectmadness · #8 9th November 2011, 08:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crokett

IF it is anywhere but the OS, it isn't SW RAID. It is HW RAID, even if it isn't on a true RAID controller. If I create a RAID set using mdadm in Linux, even if it is formatted NTFS I am pretty sure Windows can't see the RAID set, though it may be able to see 2 independent drives formatted as NTFS.

I'm not sure I agree with you here crokett.

For my mind, hardware RAID is simply that at a hardware level the "controller" presents a single disk to the system motherboard and / or disk connectors (SATA, SAS, SCSI, PATA etc).

Anything else is software. It has to be, as there is no hardware anywhere for the parity computations and controller logic.

I also would like to point at the RAID1 array on my Shuttle that you set in BIOS, and then Windows (needs a driver disk) and Linux both see it as a RAID array and see partitions created by each other. In software.

Far as I can tell, the BIOS is simply used to list which disks are involved in a raid array. The actual RAID metadata is stored on the disks.

crokett · #9 9th November 2011, 10:14 PM

Ok. You say potayto I say potahto.

For me, anything outside the OS is HW. I mean, I used to fix RAID issues on dedicated RAID adapters and when you get down to it, the RAID layout was all done on the RAID adapter BIOS - that is SW. So technically that is SW RAID.

It was also stored on the drives as backup. See my point? Either way, no biggie. The most important thing is I wouldn't put much on a RAID 0 array, unless it was used as cache or a disk pool for a tape backup or the like.

iamgenius · #10 13th November 2011, 04:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crokett

Software RAID? Sofware RAID is done in the OS - so this means Windows is doing the RAID.
Hardware RAID is done at the RAID Adapter. It has the RAID array and then presents it to the OS as one large disk.

If you really have SW RAID, Fedora won't be able to see a Windows software RAID set any more than Windows would be able to see a Fedora one. Software RAID is built in the OS. If you want to install Fedora alongside Windows your options are to redo the RAID array in Windows and leave space for Fedora, or put Fedora on a different HDD. Personally I wouldn't use a RAID 0 array for anything. Disks are too cheap.

Quote:

Originally Posted by crokett

IF it is anywhere but the OS, it isn't SW RAID. It is HW RAID, even if it isn't on a true RAID controller. If I create a RAID set using mdadm in Linux, even if it is formatted NTFS I am pretty sure Windows can't see the RAID set, though it may be able to see 2 independent drives formatted as NTFS.

I'm kinda of having a hard time believing this. Windows doesn't see the two hard drives in the RAID array, because it is taken care of even before windows is installed. Windows just sees one whole disk. I setup my RAID 0 via BIOS and using the software provided by it. After that, I boot from my windows 7 DVD and start installing windows. The windows 7 setup will detect one whole drive, which is in reality two identical drives striped in RAID0 configuration. So, how come it is done in the OS???? The OS isn't even installed yet. And I know I have software RAID simply because I don't have a dedicated RAID adapter/controller.

Like I said in my first post, fedora did detect some RAID configs but it didn't completely recognize it. Sounds like fedora need to talk to mobo manufacturers to make sure their OS can talk to the RAID software built in them.

That's how it is or at least how I think it is. Right people?

I was expecting fedora to simply see the drive and I'll just choose it as my OS drive. You know, I can create a second partition in my RAID0, but it will just get unrecognized.

---------- Post added at 08:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:45 AM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by politcallycorrectmadness

Depending on the BIOS style raid (fakeraid) used, Linux and Windows can install on the same software raid array.

The caveat to this is that the particular style of software raid must be supported by the Linux fakeraid subsystem.

The Linux fakeraid subsystem is called dmraid - so you'll need to look up which "fakeraid" controller you have (maybe the hardware info in windows can give you some pointers) and have a quick look on the internet to see if Linux currently talks with/to it.

The fact you don't get the option in the installer to install to this software raid kind of hints it might not be supported.

I think that's how it is. I'll try and see if I can figure out if my raid controller is supported by fedora.

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread.