Install on RAID array with XP

[DarkNemesis618]

I am completely new to Linux, I've used windows my entire life and while I do like XP, I decided to try out Fedora Core 3.

I currently have 2 80GB SATA Drives in a RAID stripe 0 config. I have it partitioned into 80-20-60GB partitions. 80 to run Windows XP and my games/programs, 20 to run Fedora Core 3 and 60 for data. The problem is that when I tried installing Fedora, it saw my hard drives as 2 80GB SATA drives. Not the RAID config with the 3 partitions. I didnt want to install it as to not mess up windows. I will still be using windows but I want to try out Linux. Am I doing something wrong?

[thorng]

The SATA controller not are true hardware raid controller. (It's a software raid with hardware assist). if the controller vender supply the driver for Linux, then you can use it for data storage.

Or, you can use them as two SATA drives and setup up Linux Software-raid on top of that but mean It can't coexist with Windows partitions.

In any case, you can't boot off these type of controller configured in raid 0, (raid 1 yes)

so I will say you are out of luck. They can't coexist.

[MaegRil]

I've had a similar experience.

I have a Supermicro board with an onboard Promise Fasttrack IDE RAID controller.
But sadly I gave it up after MUCH effort.
I've got 4 Western Digital SE drives, and I was so looking forward to having 2 RAID-0 drives.

Like thorng says, The SATA controller not are true hardware raid controller.
It's the same thing for the Promise Fasttrack.
Well, there are some true S-ATA RAID controllers out there, but I am presuming yours is not.

I had to reconfigure the kernel, compile a driver or module against the reconfigured kernel, copy it somewhere, and then pray it would work when I rebooted.
I did come very close to getting it working. So close, I was "almost" booting off one of the RAID-0 drives.
Almost booting - for some reason the when the driver or module was loaded I would get an error saying "module compiled for uni-processor use" or something like that. Thing is, I have a dual CPU system. And I KNOW I compiled that driver against an SMP kernel. I tried it time and time again. And I just COULD NOT get that driver compiled for a SMP kernel. But really, that is just my bad luck.

It also meant that if I ever changed my kernel I'd have to do it all over again

To be honest, it wasn't worth the effort. For me anyway.

AFAIK, any RAID controller that's not a true hardware RAID controller, whether it's IDE or S-ATA, is either one of the following......

1) not easy
2) out of the question

I don't mean to deter you from using RAID or Fedora Core 3 or any other form of linux. But that's just my experience and what I know from reading about it on other websites.