Installing Ubuntu on SATA RAID 0

[Jean-Eric Cuendet]

> 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.

You are right. You'll need to destroy the partitions to create the MD
raid. But if you need RAID in Linux, I would suggest using MD. It's very
stable, fast and easy enough to be used by non-sys-admins.

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

Are you sure? Don't you think that Ubuntu has dmraid available in the setup?

> 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.

That's not *that* hard except you'll need some spare disk...
Knoppix + tar is your friend in this case.

> 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.

me neither... Seems the really *hard* way...

> 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

You'll need to scratch the disk partitions to do that I think...

> this
> work in the dual-boot situation?

For dual booting, why not using Partition1 of each disk for RAID using
SATA controller and Partition2 for Linux with software RAID on it?
I think it's your best luck... Don't know if SATA RAID let you make RAID
from partitions or only from whole disk.

Hope that helps.
-jec


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