RE: We tried everything and now I am emailing asking for help..

The first confusing part is that the 7899 does not do RAID-5 by itself, it
is just a SCSI controller.  I'll try to figure out what RAID you have..
umm... it is AACRAID/PERCRAID PERC3/Di ... um.... look at the web pages:
http://domsch.com/linux/
http://domsch.com/linux/aacraid-old.html
http://domsch.com/linux/aacraid/linux-2.2.20-aacraid-20020131-2.patch.gz
This stuff is not included or supported in the tomsrtbt kernel and modules,
you'll need to at minimum build your own driver, probably build your own
kernel.  Note, a simple google search for dell+linux+raid+2500 turned all
of this up pretty quickly, you might want to check out the Google "help
and how to search" page at: http://www.google.com/help/index.html

-Tom

On Fri, 10 May 2002, Edward Brooksbank wrote:

> Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:11:34 -0700
> From: Edward Brooksbank <[email protected]>
> To: 'Tom Oehser' <[email protected]>
> Cc: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
> Subject: RE: We tried everything and now I am emailing asking for help..
>
> Sorry, yes it was version 2.0.103, I saw the update the Monday after you
> posted it.  When I checked it I saw that you added the drivers for the
> AIC7xxx SCSI and indeed I thought my troubles were over.  But when I booted
> with version 2.0.103 on the Dell 2500, it can't see /dev/sda.  It's just
> three drives set up in one RAID 5 container, nothing fancy.  When I boot my
> low end Dell with SCSI but no RAID, no problems.  It has to be the RAID
> driver it's failing on, but after researching on the site I thought my only
> option was to rebuild.  So we started on the rebuild process, it seemed to
> work.  When it booted it registered as version 2.0.105, but we had the
> errors I sent you with my first, less then complete email.
>
> I have the feeling I am over looking something truly simple, but for the
> life of me I can't seem to nail it down.  We have been scratching our heads
> for three days now.  I am sorry to take up your time, I have tried to search
> for threads on this on the web site.  My search results didn't help me solve
> the problem. If I'm overlooking the answer right on the site somewhere;
> sorry.  I would really like to find a way to make it work for the high end
> servers using RAID.  It's just such a great solution for restores.  It beats
> the dickens out of any backup vendor's bare metal restore.    At this point
> I could use a clue, is there a work around to recompiling that I just
> overlooked?
>
> Thanks, could you please do a reply all on this, I am going to take this
> project home with me and don't have access to my office mail at home.
>
> Thanks for your time,
>
> Ed Brooksbank
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Oehser [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 8:01 PM
> To: Edward Brooksbank
> Subject: Re: We tried everything and now I am emailing asking for help..
>
>
>
> What version of tomsrtbt?  Make sure tomsrtbt-2.0.103 is failing
> to recognize them before worrying about rebuilding... -Tom
>
> On Thu, 9 May 2002, Edward Brooksbank wrote:
>
> > Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 16:35:41 -0700
> > From: Edward Brooksbank <[email protected]>
> > To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
> > Subject: We tried everything and now I am emailing asking for help..
> >
> > Tom
> >
> > 	We are using tomsrtbt and love it.  It's a great utility and we've
> > been using it as a tool for our servers with great success. It's so great
> to
> > do a full restore in less then a half hour.  But of course we have a
> problem
> > now, so I am writing you.
> >
> > 	When we upgraded to a Dell 2500 server with the Adaptec SCSI
> > controller model 7899 tomsrtbt failed to recognize the SCSI raid disks.
> So
> > we tried following your instructions to rebuild tomsrtbt with our own
> > kernel, using RedHat 7.2.  We used your hint and booted with the boot
> > diskette to make the changes in your environment.  The unpack works great,
> > the buildit works great.  The boot diskette does not, we get these errors:
> >
> > 1. RAMDISK: couldn't find valid RAM disk image starting at 867.
> > 2. [drm:radeon_init] *Error* Cannot initialize agpgart module.
> > 3. VFS insert root floppy.
> >
> >
> > Can you tell me from these brief error messages, where we goofed up in the
> > build process?
> > I know that this family of SCSI controllers has been a problem for other
> > people.
> > Has anyone modified tomsrtbt to boot with this equipment and
> configuration?
> >
> > Thanks for your time and all your work,
> >
> > Ed Brooksbank
> >
>