RAID Lv 1: Grub fails to install!

[Steven Davies-Morris]

On 03/09/2012 06:49 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
> 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.

+1. That all sounds like excellent adivice to me.
-- 
SDM a 21st century schizoid man in SoCal
Systems Theory website www.systemstheory.net
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