RAID Lv 1: Grub fails to install!

[Liam Proven]

On 9 March 2012 05:42, Rigved Rakshit <r.phate at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> My friend also has a similar problem. His laptop came with fakeRAID, with
> the drivers installed in Windows. This fakeRAID setup can be controlled via
> BIOS. The solution suggested in this thread requires installing Linux using
> mdadm. But, will that cause a problem with the Windows install? My friend
> does not want to lose his original Windows install. Is there a way to
> install Ubuntu to such a system?

Wrong tool.

`mdadm` is for administering Linux software RAIDs. These are not
compatible with firmware fakeRAID, at all, ever.

There /is/ a Linux tool, `dmraid`, which is used to manipulate
firmware fakeRAIDs. I have not tried it.

I *really* would not recommend it.

FakeRAID is a hack designed to get around manufacturer-imposed
restrictions in Windows and Mac OS X workstation editions. Both these
OSs are perfectly capable of creating, using and managing software
RAID arrays but the vendors block you from doing this because that is
a feature of the expensive server editions.

FakeRAID works by lying to the OS' disk device driver, or by
installing modified disk device drivers. This is not an approach that
plays well with dual-booting. A small change on one side could well
completely erase the arrays of the other OS.

It's there. Use it at your own risk. I use RAID a lot and I would not
touch it myself. You /might/ - I emphasize MIGHT - be able to get a
separate Linux install on an actual disk to mount and read a Windows
fakeRAID array. I suspect that trying to *install* Linux onto such an
array is an exercise that will result in long days of repartitioning,
reformatting, and reinstalling multiple OSs over and over and OVER
again... and that the end result would be about as stable as an
elephant balancing on a traffic cone on one foot.

Since the entire objective of RAID is stability, this seems extremely
self-defeating to me.

Buy more disks, or break the array and use one disk for Windows and
one for Linux.


-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884