fedora 8 live install partitioning sees raid where not exists

[redpark]

before booting, i disabled in the bios all motherboard raid devices. after booting from the live i686 cd, i checked gparted -- it shows sda 153 gig all unallocated, sdb 153 gig all unallocated, and sdc 76 gig all unallocated. i also checked /dev/mapper, and confirmed that there were no nvidia_* devices are listed. fwiw, i also verified that /root/anaconda.cfg does not exist.

however, in the "install to hard disk" process, the partition table shows only 2 devices: mapper/nvidia_efcahfdg 314 gig all unallocated, and sdc 76 gig all unallocated. in other words, the install process apparently thinks sda and sdb are configured as a single raid device. how can i persuade install that sda and sdb are independent disks?

[in my first install attempt, i did have raid enabled in the bios, and allocated mapper/nvidia_efcahfdg during installation. rebooting from the hard drive failed, with a nash error about not being able to locate the mapped drive. i retried with raid disabled, thinking it might work better. wrong, so far, at least.]

solutions or hints are very welcome. thanks, ed

[Seve]

Hello:
Try passing the command linux nodmraid
Hit the tab key, then the space bar once and then type and enter
linux nodmraid

and see how it goes.

Seve

[redpark]

thanks for the quick and very promising reply. didn't work, so i'm back for the next suggestion. here's what i did this time:

during the countdown to boot from the live cd, i hit insert and edited the live cd boot command, adding nodmraid at the end as the last option. [that's not exactly as you described it; did i get it right?] before running install to hard disk, i checked /dev/mapper and verified there were no nvicia_* devices there. then i ran install to hard disk and it offered me the /dev/mapper/nvidia_efcahfdg as last time. i exited the installation, checked /dev/mapper, and found two nvidia_* devices with slightly different suffixes.

apparently the install-to-hard-disk app is creating the mapped device itself???

as a long shot, i added nodmraid to the command line for the install-to-hard-disk app; that didn't help either.

thanks, ed

[Seve]

Hello:
I have never used a LiveCD to install, so I may be slightly off with my instructions.
So you may want to have a look here to confirm the procedure:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/instal...tallation.html

Anaconda, which is the installer for Fedora is picking up Software Raid and hence the /dev/mapper/xxxxx issue you are seeing.

To disable the BIOS assisted raid (Software Raid) the normal boot/installation option is
linux nodmraid

Seve

[A.Serbinski]

Best way to disable fakeraid is to wipe the metadata from the disks. Use "dmraid -E /dev/sdX" or even better "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX". The second option takes considerably longer, but wipes the whole disk with zeros.

Once this is done, if the fakeraid is disabled in the bios, there is no chance of the installer detecting fakeraid.

[redpark]

many thanks to you both. what a helpful forum!

i ended up copying /dev/zero to all three disks. then unplugged the larger two (the ones that were being detected as a raid array) and installed to the smaller one from the fedora core 8 live cd. then rebooted with the larger ones plugged back in, and activated them in gparted. everything is working well so far.

that might have been more cautious than necessary, but i'm happy having something that worked.

again, many thanks!

ed