Installing Ubuntu on SATA RAID 0

[Sean Hammond]

So I know someone who has two drives in a SATA RAID 0 stripe, using a
Silicon Image 3112A chip (which is fakeraid), and was wondering if anyone
with Linux raid experience might be able to offer anything.

He has Windows XP installed currently, and might be interested enough to
install Ubuntu if it can dual-boot, but has given up because the
complications introduced by his RAID setup were too much.

Is there a way to get Ubuntu to install dual-boot on a system like this? Are
there drivers available in the Ubuntu installer that support this chip? If
so, exactly what would have to be done during install to get them running?
He tells me the Ubuntu installer didn't work in the normal way, I think
maybe it didn't automatically detect his partitions.

As I understand it we can't use Linux's software raid drvier 'md', because
this would require us to delete the current 'fakeraid' partitions,
destroying his data, and in any case there's no way Windows is going to run
on Linux partitions so dual-boot would be impossible.

If there is no driver in the Ubuntu installer, then I think our options are:

1. Install Ubuntu on some other, non-raid volume, then install the needed
raid support, then migrate Ubuntu. Sounds pretty troublesome, I don't think
he's willing to go to so much trouble.

2. Rebuild the Ubuntu installer with the necessary raid support, then
install. I have no idea what would be required here or how to rebuild the
Ubuntu installer.

3. Switch the bios to ATA, install Ubuntu, then install the raid support,
then switch the BIOS back. Not sure if this is possible or not. Would this
work in the dual-boot situation?

Thanks for any input.
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