[Bug 396078] [NEW] More on RAID 1 issues (RAID1 + DMRAID) = No boot possible

[gadLinux]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: dmraid

Hello,

I open this bug report to clarify and unify all RAID1 + DMRAID reported
problems. I hope this will help to solve the issue.

The problem:

System cannot boot with recent ubuntu distributions when RAID 1 is the
primary partition.

My configuration:

I have AMD64:
Linux azul1 2.6.30-9-generic #10-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jun 12 13:08:18 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

With 3 disk SATA installed on the main motherboard (ASUS one).

Two of the disks build up the RAID 1 system and one spare disk goes for
system.

I cannot activate RAID for only two disk in the BIOS and the only way to
do it is to activate RAID for all the SATA controller. So the system
becomes:

Disk 1: RAID ARY (Two disks 500GB)
Disk 2: RAID Single Disk (I boot from this disk, and it's configured as raid by BIOS, no choice if I want RAID).
Disk 3: CDROM


Known informations:

A message with "no block devices found" is shown in the console
(normally F7 or F8) when booting. The system got hanged and no more
actions can be taken.

It seems that something got not well configurated in some of the initram
scripts. As this seems to be a initram problem.


Workaround:

The first workaround is to uninstall dmraid package and let the system boot with the /dev/sdX drives.
After you can reinstall the package and everything will work like a charm until next reboot. 


My current workaround is:

      * Create a initram package with an old kernel (2.6.28-9) without the dmraid package installed.
      * Point the boot kernel to the newest one. 
      * Make it boot with the old initram package and new kernel. 


It seems that this does not work with new kernels. The initram package created does not bot (maybe other bug). 


With this method I'm able to boot the system as DMRAID is not installed in the initram package but it's installed on the system. So after booting eveything comes normal. Raid is activated and everything works. 

Only one thing is *strange*

The Single Disk RAID is also shown as /dev/sdc. It seems that linux is
unable to activate the RAID on this disk because is currently in use. I
suppose that it's in use because is the one used for booting.

One curious thing is that the first partition (boot) does not get
visible and it looks to be blocked by the kernel. So maybe this can be
the cause why the RAID is not activated on boot and cannot boot from
RAID.


-----

root at azul1:~# ls /dev/sdc*
/dev/sdc  /dev/sdc2  /dev/sdc3

----
As you can see /dev/sdc1 is not there but (fdisk):  

Disposit. Inicio    Comienzo      Fin      Bloques  Id  Sistema
/dev/sdc1   *           1          12       96358+  83  Linux
/dev/sdc2              13       22968   184394070   
dev/sdc3           22969       24792    14651280   82  Linux swap / Solaris


So... Maybe here can be the problem?

I will also include screenshots of the boot.

** Affects: dmraid (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

-- 
More on RAID 1 issues (RAID1 + DMRAID) = No boot possible
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/396078
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