UPDATE: Problem Upgrading From RH 7.3 to RH 9 on Dell 4300, MegaRAID

Received several replies.  Thanks to:  Randy Schrickel, Klaasjan Brand
and J|rgen Bernau , I've attached their replies below.  I checked out
the link that Klaasjan and J|rgen provided and it led me on (very
productive) journey.  Don't know if everyone is aware but there is
another very active list out there that is specific to linux running on
Dell PowerEdge servers,  for general information see: 
http://lists.us.dell.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-poweredge  (the list
is called   [email protected] ).  The upgrade was postponed, so
I'll post a summary after it happens with the outcome (most of the
feedback points to the RAID controller firmware, BTW it is a PERC2/SC).

Thanks
Dave
   

>From Randy:
Hi Dave. That sounds vaguely familiar, and hopefully my memory will 
lead you to a solution. I don't think I upgraded firmware, but did use

a different driver. Try looking for a megaraid_2002 driver (google) 
and use that. Put it on its own floppy, and tell the installer that 
you have a driver disk, etc.

>From Klaasjan Brand:

I've worked with the megaraid driver on a Dell 2600 which works fine
under RH9.
Maybe you could be more specific what exactly is going wrong. During
the RH9 installation
you can switch to the debug console using cntrl-alt-f2 (could be
another f-key; use alt-f7
to switch back to the installer).
First you need to check if the driver loads and the array is correctly
detected.
Updating to the latest firmware should not hurt, see
http://www.domsch.com/linux/ under the
megaraid/firmware heading.

>From J|rgen:

we ran into several problems with dell machines using redhat and debian
in 
different versions. The final fix was to upgrade the megaraid driver to

1.18f. We had no more problems since then. (But the uptime is only two
weeks 
so we dont know for sure)

We also dont use 4300 but several 6650 which use the same controler.

Btw.: Did you read the fine documentation on
http://www.domsch.com/linux/ ? 

Hope this helps, feel free to ask directly if there are any questions.

==Original Post==

Hello all:
                Tried to upgrade a two-processor Dell 4300 the other
night from RH 7.3 (kernel 2.4.18-10smp) to RH 9.  When the install gets
to the point where it is looking for a prior linux version, it is unable
to detect the hard drive(s) (RAID).  It then asks that you either select
the appropriate driver from a list or provide the appropriate drive. 
Tried selecting "Megaraid" from the list without success.  The
appropriate section from dmesg when booting 7.3 (where the RAID is
detected) follows:  

megaraid: v1.18a (Release Date: Mon Mar 11 11:38:38 EST 2002)
megaraid: found 0x8086:0x1960:idx 0:bus 2:slot 10:func 1
scsi2 : Found a MegaRAID controller at 0xe085c000, IRQ: 18
megaraid: [ED4D:1.25] detected 1 logical drives
megaraid: channel[1] is raid.
scsi2 : LSI Logic MegaRAID ED4D 254 commands 15 targs 4 chans 7 luns
blk: queue df9b3218, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
scsi2: scanning virtual channel 0 for logical drives.
  Vendor: MegaRAID  Model: LD0 RAID5 17136R  Rev: ED4D
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
blk: queue df999a18, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
scsi2: scanning physical channel 0 for devices.
  Vendor: DELL      Model: 1x6 U2W SCSI BP   Rev: 5.39
  Type:   Processor                          ANSI SCSI revision: 02
blk: queue df79c418, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
SCSI device sda: 35094528 512-byte hdwr sectors (17968 MB)
Partition check:
 sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 < sda5 sda6 >

I've done some Googling around and seen some similar references where
the fix is to upgrade the firmware.  Just wondering if anyone has run
across this.  Any suggestions about how to proceed would be greatly
appreciated.  I will summarize.

Thanks,

Dave

BTW:  Very happy that the list is back.....
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