[NCLUG] Magic Boot CD?

[Paul Hummer]

On Fri, 29 May 2009 19:19:28 -0700 (PDT), Marcio Luis Teixeira
<marciot at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm half tempted to write "Do not remove, contains magic spell" on a blank
> CD and stick it in the drive, then use it that way. It'll be like my very
> own "magic switch" story:

That story would then be posted on thedailywtf by the person who replaces you
later down the road. :)

> Seriously, has anyone seen this sort of thing before? A few details: This
> particular box has an old 4-port 3ware IDE RAID PCI controller. Two IDE HD
> drives are both connected to the controller. The CD-ROM drive is the only
> thing connected to the integrated IDE controller on the mobo. The only
> other odd thing about this system is that I was unable to get Linux to boot
> at all with the default partitioning setup with the logical volumes and
> such. I had to remove those and make regular partitions like in the good
> ol' days.

You should set your BIOS to boot directly to the HDD, or, in this case, the
raid card.  That way, it doesn't scan the CD drive at all.  In order for the
kernel to boot to LVM partitions, the kernel has to have that support built-in.
It sounds like the drivers for your raid card (probably fakeraid) are already
supported by your kernel.  It might be a combination of raid card and LVM that
causes it not to boot.  My last experience with fakeraid has convinced my that
you should go full hardware raid or settle for software raid.  None of this
"in-between" crap.

On a non-technical note, as systems get older, they begin requiring more
voodoo.  I have two rackmount servers I bought used from Tummy two years ago,
and sometimes they do really silly things, and I have no idea why.  I just make
sure I have enough firstborn lambs to sacrifice when it happens.  :)

-- 
Paul Hummer
http://theironlion.net
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