Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 ITE RAID

[pikeman94]

I thought I heard that Daper Drake was supposed to support this RAID controller (ITE 8212)? The install CD will not recognize the controller. However, the live CD does recognize the controller and will successfully install Daper Drake. On subsequent reboot the system hangs and I suspect that it is because the boot loader/kernel doesn't recognize the RAID controller. Any help? Suggestions?

Pikeman

[pikeman94]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 ITE RAID

Digging a little deeper into this issue I have discovered that on boot I make it past stage 1.5 in Grub and into stage 2 where it hands off booting to the OS. I watched as the hardware was detected and not once did I see the ITE 8212 RAID controller detected. Again, why does the controller get detected on the live CD kernel and not on the install CD kernel? Is this by design? Or is this a flaw? Anyone?

Pikeman94

[sky]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 ITE RAID

Hi,

I think you should open a bug report as it's in live cd and not install, but if you're using live to install does it detect it ? Look out because I've heard installer from live was still in early beta few weeks ago...

[pikeman94]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 ITE RAID

This is a follow-up report from the trenches.

The kernel version of the Live CD I have is 2.6.15-21-386. I noticed on the install version I have running on a VM the kernel is 2.6.15-20-386. When patched it goes to 2.6.15-22-386. That is neither here nor there. But note worthy.

I did some digging and discovered that one of my problems was after the live CD installed and a reboot was done the system would boot and load Grub. At this point I can select my OS to boot from and the Grub proceeds to stage 2 of the boot sequence. Here is the funny thing. In order for Grub to present that menu it has to have read it from my RAID array!!!! Then when I select to boot the Linux kernel it proceeds to start initrd and discovers my hardware. No where in there does it detect my RAID controller!

Now, I have rebuilt the initrd.img-2.6.15-21-386 on my harddrive by using the initramfs utility. Here is a quick run down of what I did from a running Live CD that can see my harddrive:

• Make a folder to mount to off of root mkdir /hd
• Mount the hard drive on the RAID array with mount /dev/hde3 /hd (your device /dev/hd?? may be different)
• Edit the /hd/etc/mkinitramfs/modules file and add the it821x module name
• Not sure this will do anything, but I edited the /hd/etc/modules file and added the 821x module name there. This particular file adds the module support for the ITE 821x controller for the kernel.
• Next, I ran the mkinitramfs script with the following parameters: mkinitramfs -r /dev/hde3 -o /hd/boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-21-386-Custom 2.6.15-21-386
• Modify /hd/boot/menu.lst to change the initrd to the one that was just created.
• Reboot

I was truly hoping that this would fix my problem. However, I am still back at square one with the ITE controller not getting detected. My hope was that by rebuilding the initrd that I could include the module for the ITE 821x controller. That is the whole pint of initrd (as I have come to understand it) is to load key drivers before the boot sequence passes control off to the kernel.

So far I have lots of frustration and a non bootable system. Anyone that trolls this forum and has any experience, any help would be appreciated.

I will report more as I do more digging and tinkering.

Pikeman94

[sky]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 ITE RAID

Hi,

I think I would try to get a /boot partition apart of the raid array...
But I'm not sure, if it would work

Good luck

Cheers

[pikeman94]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 ITE RAID

Unfortunately, /boot is on the RAID array. Even more frustrating is the fact that I checked my custom initrd and the it821x module is there, but for some reason does not get loaded. I am truly beginning to wonder if this is a bug. I think I will try a post in the bug report forum to see what happens.

Pikeman94

[sky]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 ITE RAID

I think it's a good idea... Please keep us informed.

[pikeman94]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 ITE RAID

Super good news here!!!!!

I have successfully booted Dapper Drake on my ITE8212 RAID controller! For some reason I must have screwed up my initrd creation. So I have a VM instance of Dapper Drake running and I recreted it and compiled a new kernel. Go to this address for a very easy How-To: http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/sys...TRO-KERNEL-PKG

Here are the steps to verify that the it821x.ko driver is included in the initrd file:

• Copy the initrd.img file you created to a different directory, preferably a temp directory that you have created.
• cd to this new dir and change the name of the initrd.img you copied to initrd.img.gz
• Now gunzip this file.
• Finally, run this command: cpio -i < initrd.img

You should now have the initrd.img file expanded in the current directory. Now look in this path lib/modules/2.6.15-23-386/kernel/drivers/ide/pci. The kernel version maybe different on your system. If you see it821x.ko then you created the initrd properly.

My next test will be to try a fresh install from the Live CD on my VM instance. From there I will repeat all of my previous steps and try a few different things. Once I am satisfied I have a working model I will post my steps and maybe even find some place to post the modified initrd.img so that it is a little more accessible to other newbies.

Now, that I figured this out I must be up to newbite+

I will be out next week so I will be slow getting my new tests done. I will post something in two weeks. Of course this may all change when the production version of Dapper arrives next week hopefully.

Unitl my next post good luck and if any one has any questions about this procedure, post here and I will respond. Good luck!

Pikeman94