Software RAID Questions

blueaura · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Posts: 66

Since upgrading my PC around six months ago I haven't had gentoo installed on it, only on my laptop

The main reason for this was because I upgraded to a full raid set up. I have 2 x 250gb in raid 1 to hold all my downloads, drivers, and important data as well as 2 x 250gb in raid 0 holding two windows installs and all my programs.

So why haven't I installed gentoo yet?
The mirrored raid is on a hardware raid controller built in to the motherboard. The stripped raid for OS's are on the boards software raid controller. After setting all this up switching the configuration is not an option. I still want to install gentoo though but how?

I have read the wiki article about installing gentoo with software raid. From what I can gather I need to turn the boards pseudo software raid off meaning I cannot boot windows using raid 0

which will also obliterate all my existing partitions and data.

* Can I install Gentoo on software raid 0 partitions and still be able to run windows from the same raid 0 configured hard drives?
* Can I do all this while keeping my existing partitions intact?

If I can bring Gentoo back to my desktop I will be truly over the moon.

aidanjt · Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 3:32 pm Post subject:

You can do this, but because the kernel devs cut the bios raid modules out in favour of md, you need userspace tools loaded at boot by initrd. It's a real mess. I eventually ended up keeping my raptors split to avoid the hassle.

cyrillic · Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 9:56 pm Post subject:

Since you have multiple computers, you could always use the laptop for Windows (or dual boot), then use the desktop for Gentoo plus file storage.

blueaura · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Posts: 66

Well I have gentoo and windows on the same raid 0 now. It's the hardware controller though. It meant spending nearly all day swapping partitions from one raid to another, backing things up etc. But finally got there in the end.