Installing Mandriva on Sata Drives!!!

[Jack S. Garrett]

I have been trying to install my 2006 Mandriva x86 64 onto 4 each sata
drives, with no sucess. Theree seems to be some thing that you have to
set before you install, to get all of the disks tp work as one. I will
sure be glad when this all happens. Dave has been helping me to get this
going. WE will get it but things take time. I have seen enought to know
that the sata drives are fast really fast. So as soon as we get some info
from Asus we will proceed with our project.

[James Vahn]

Post by Jack S. Garrett
I have been trying to install my 2006 Mandriva x86 64 onto 4 each sata
drives, with no sucess. Theree seems to be some thing that you have to
set before you install, to get all of the disks tp work as one. I will
sure be glad when this all happens. Dave has been helping me to get this
going. WE will get it but things take time. I have seen enought to know
that the sata drives are fast really fast. So as soon as we get some info
from Asus we will proceed with our project.

If you're talking about RAID, then here's some Debian-releated info.
Might be useful, might not:

http://alioth.debian.org/projects/rootraiddoc

[Dave Laird]

Good morning, James!

Post by James Vahn

Post by Jack S. Garrett
I have been trying to install my 2006 Mandriva x86 64 onto 4 each sata
drives, with no sucess. Theree seems to be some thing that you have to
set before you install, to get all of the disks tp work as one. I will
sure be glad when this all happens. Dave has been helping me to get this
going. WE will get it but things take time. I have seen enought to know
that the sata drives are fast really fast. So as soon as we get some
info from Asus we will proceed with our project.

If you're talking about RAID, then here's some Debian-releated info.
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/rootraiddoc

That does help, and thanks. However, as I found out earlier this morning,
when Asus called me back, you have *two* interfaces supported on the
motherboard, and there is a procedure for using them both, as opposed to
using just one. (either Promise or VIA).

One is a Promise chip, the other a VIA chip, and never the twain shall
meet, apparently, but as it turns out they CAN work together to give you a
HUGE RAID drive. You have to initialize the VIA *first*, then the Promise,
not the other way around as the manual says. 8-( As usual, if you want
technical support from Asus, you have to call, leave a message and wait
for it to cross over the dateline. I think I've got enough information
from Asus and the Debian site to figure this one out eventually.

Now I have to get some time off so I can go over and try this trick I
learned from Asus this morning and make sure it works. Later versions of
the Asus motherboard do not have this "feature". There is a even a version
of this motherboard (KV8) that features FOUR Promise interfaces. Can you
say a terabyte of disk space at really fast throughput speeds?

Life just keeps getting better and better. <sigh>

Dave

[James Vahn]

Post by Dave Laird
Good morning, James!

Yessir! Notice the new email addy.. Rocky hit the jackpot and put a SOLD
sign on "circuit.com", so I'm short no more. :(

Post by Dave Laird
One is a Promise chip, the other a VIA chip, and never the twain shall
meet, apparently, but as it turns out they CAN work together to give you a
HUGE RAID drive.

Considering the ..hmmm.. "quality" of hard drives these days, I'd take
a look at RAID 4 instead of the single huge drive. Imagine your computer
telling you that a drive had failed and was swapped out of the system,
waiting to be replaced at your convenience. That's a whole lot better
than the usual bother. :-)

Post by Dave Laird
Now I have to get some time off so I can go over and try this trick I
learned from Asus this morning and make sure it works. Later versions of
the Asus motherboard do not have this "feature". There is a even a version
of this motherboard (KV8) that features FOUR Promise interfaces. Can you
say a terabyte of disk space at really fast throughput speeds?

Did I hear the magic words, "whisper quiet"..? It's beginning to sound
like part of the TV set.

--

[Dave Laird]

Good morning, James!

Post by James Vahn

Post by Dave Laird
Good morning, James!

Yessir! Notice the new email addy.. Rocky hit the jackpot and put a SOLD
sign on "circuit.com", so I'm short no more. :(

Yes, I heard that from Rusan, and was somewhat astounded to see the news
server was renamed and still functional. As it typically happens, the DNS
doesn't reflect the new owner, yet:

Registrant:
The Circuit! Board
14004 E 24th Ave
Veradale, WA 99037
US

Domain Name: CIRCUIT.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Seelbach, Rocky ***@seelbach.us
14004 E 24TH AVE
Spokane Valley, WA 99037-8341
US

Sad to see old circuit.com be sold, but I'll bet Rocky made a BUNDLE
o'money in the deal! <grin> Wait until I upgrade Kharma and think of a
catchy name for Kharma.net and you can have a home, if you need one.

Post by James Vahn
Considering the ..hmmm.. "quality" of hard drives these days, I'd take
a look at RAID 4 instead of the single huge drive. Imagine your computer
telling you that a drive had failed and was swapped out of the system,
waiting to be replaced at your convenience. That's a whole lot better
than the usual bother. :-)

There is that, to be sure. I have, at my side, a brand-new Western Digital
that didn't make it very far out of the anti-static wrap before it's
headed back to its manufacturer on an RMA for a noisy bearing. Don't they
EVER test these drives, anymore?

Post by James Vahn

Post by Dave Laird
Now I have to get some time off so I can go over and try this trick I
learned from Asus this morning and make sure it works. Later versions of
the Asus motherboard do not have this "feature". There is a even a
version of this motherboard (KV8) that features FOUR Promise interfaces.
Can you say a terabyte of disk space at really fast throughput speeds?

Did I hear the magic words, "whisper quiet"..? It's beginning to sound
like part of the TV set.

Indeed! I gather from a discussion with Jack last night that he installed
a pair of drives on the VIA chipset, turned off the Promise Interface
(pending installing XP Pro on the pair of VIA drives) and was heading
toward turning Promise back on, as of last evening. If it works, it is the
exact OPPOSITE of what they say in the manuals. That's why technical
writers are going hungry in this country. SHEESH!

Dave

[James Vahn]

Post by Dave Laird

Post by James Vahn
Yessir! Notice the new email addy.. Rocky hit the jackpot and put a SOLD
sign on "circuit.com", so I'm short no more. :(

Yes, I heard that from Rusan, and was somewhat astounded to see the news
server was renamed and still functional. As it typically happens, the DNS

Looks like it's changed already, pings to the new owners now.

Post by Dave Laird
Sad to see old circuit.com be sold, but I'll bet Rocky made a BUNDLE
o'money in the deal! <grin> Wait until I upgrade Kharma and think of a
catchy name for Kharma.net and you can have a home, if you need one.

Might take you up on that, thanks. :-) gonzo.kharma.net

Post by Dave Laird
Indeed! I gather from a discussion with Jack last night that he installed
a pair of drives on the VIA chipset, turned off the Promise Interface
(pending installing XP Pro on the pair of VIA drives) and was heading
toward turning Promise back on, as of last evening. If it works, it is the
exact OPPOSITE of what they say in the manuals. That's why technical
writers are going hungry in this country. SHEESH!

Actually makes more sense.

I was reading about Seagate's latest 160 GB with silent operation in mind.
A single platter drive with a 5 year warranty, the ST3160 series. $100.

The new debian installers will (supposedly) set up a RAID system:
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/daily/arch-latest/
i386, amd64, powerpc, sparc, etc.


--

[Dave Laird]

Good morning, James...

Post by James Vahn

Post by Dave Laird

Post by James Vahn
Yessir! Notice the new email addy.. Rocky hit the jackpot and put a SOLD
sign on "circuit.com", so I'm short no more. :(

Yes, I heard that from Rusan, and was somewhat astounded to see the news
server was renamed and still functional. As it typically happens, the DNS

Looks like it's changed already, pings to the new owners now.

I noticed that and pondered the end of a familiar name in Spokane for over
a decade. While I was mulling this over, I realize there are very few of
the original domains that were present back when circuit.com first made
its debut, much less most of the players that ran those systems still
present and accounted for. How ironic it was that I was talking to Gene
out at Eager Beaver just before I learned of circuit's sale, remembering
how the ISP he once ran (ieway.com was it?) consisted to two boxes in the
basement of his store when it was at the old location.

For several months I have been planning a complete overhaul of Kharma,
particularly with the thought in mind of eventually putting the news
server somewhere inside the co-location room at Cutting Edge, with Rusan
and Sudti's consent and encouragement. The sole reason I haven't done this
already being that I really am uncomfortable with it competing one-on-one
with Rocky's news server for readership in a town where few people
understand and love Usenet News. <sigh>

Post by James Vahn

Post by Dave Laird
Sad to see old circuit.com be sold, but I'll bet Rocky made a BUNDLE
o'money in the deal! <grin> Wait until I upgrade Kharma and think of a
catchy name for Kharma.net and you can have a home, if you need one.

Might take you up on that, thanks. :-) gonzo.kharma.net

Sure! I've even got a few IP addresses laying around, if that would help,
and although I do not run DNS on my own boxes, I'll bet I could get it
done pretty easily. Since the era of Hunter S. Thompson, I've always liked
the term gonzo anyway.

Post by James Vahn

Post by Dave Laird
Indeed! I gather from a discussion with Jack last night that he installed
a pair of drives on the VIA chipset, turned off the Promise Interface
(pending installing XP Pro on the pair of VIA drives) and was heading
toward turning Promise back on, as of last evening. If it works, it is
the exact OPPOSITE of what they say in the manuals. That's why technical
writers are going hungry in this country. SHEESH!

Actually makes more sense.

Jack is still unable to boot up his box with BOTH interfaces turned on,
which suggests that he possibly has a problem with his motherboard that
has gone undetected until now. After some probing around the chat lists, I
found a guy back in Indianapolis who managed to get both interfaces
working at the same time, for a total of a terabyte of disk space but,
thus far, he is the only one I've found.

Right now, Jack is running XP-Pro on two SATA drives on the VIA interface,
per the revised set of instructions I got from a technical support guy at
Asus. Contrary to what the manual suggests, you are supposed to initialize
the VIA drives first, then activate the Promise interface from the BIOS
and format your second drives. The only problem is, when Jack turns on the
Promise Interface, it no longer boots up.

The manual states you are supposed to initialize the Promise side first,
and once you have it up and running, do the reverse with the VIA
interface, and we've already tried that a few times with no success. It
makes no difference whether you RAID striped or mirrored, it just doesn't
work. However, I'm going over to his house later this week and see if I
can make any sense out of this whole thing.

I did note that the newest Asus AMD-64 Motherboards still include the K8N,
so this isn't a victim of Asus's update policies. ;-) I just downloaded
the latest version of the manual, and read it AGAIN, and it hasn't offered
one bit of new information since this all began. <sigh>

Post by James Vahn
I was reading about Seagate's latest 160 GB with silent operation in mind.
A single platter drive with a 5 year warranty, the ST3160 series. $100.
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/daily/arch-latest/
i386, amd64, powerpc, sparc, etc.

That's what is so enigmatic about Jack's predicament. Windows XP works
with RAID, as I've seen it done a few times. Most versions of Linux have
the latest drivers and will work. My conclusion is that there is an issue
with Jack's motherboard, but I could be wrong. A single platter drive with
a five year warranty? Yowza! I could use that as a news spool drive and
not worry about anything for five years. <huge grin>

Dave

[James Vahn]

Post by Dave Laird
Jack is still unable to boot up his box with BOTH interfaces turned on,
which suggests that he possibly has a problem with his motherboard that
has gone undetected until now.

Am I understanding correctly that the VIA interfaces are onboard
controllers, and the Promise's are offboard cards? It sounds like I/O
collisions. I'd be checking with Promise to see how you're supposed to
use their product in conjunction with the onboards. Possibly disable
the VIA altogether and buy two more Promise cards - which are likely
designed to work together.


--

[Dave Laird]

Good afternoon, James...

Post by James Vahn

Post by Dave Laird
Jack is still unable to boot up his box with BOTH interfaces turned on,
which suggests that he possibly has a problem with his motherboard that
has gone undetected until now.

Am I understanding correctly that the VIA interfaces are onboard
controllers, and the Promise's are offboard cards? It sounds like I/O
collisions. I'd be checking with Promise to see how you're supposed to
use their product in conjunction with the onboards. Possibly disable
the VIA altogether and buy two more Promise cards - which are likely
designed to work together.

No, they are both onboard interfaces, controlled by subsets in the setup
BIOS. Even worse, when I called Promise to see if there was any trick to
making the two interfaces work and play nicely together, they immediately
said something along the lines of, "take it up with Asus."

At any rate, Jack is called Asus tech support this afternoon, and I expect
a report from him shortly.

Dave