I just got a Dell 2850 with a PERC4ei RAID controller. It works fine with the 2.4 kernel but I can't get it to boot with the 2.6 kernel. I've tried 2.6.7 and 2.6.8.1 kernel and have compiled with the AMIMegaraid option enabled. After several searches on Google I can't seem to find anyone using the 2.6 kernel and the PERC 4ei controller. Has anyone gotten them to work together?

Thanks!

Slackware 10

Have you tried loading just the megaraid.ko or the megaraid_old.ko. I had a problem with my DELL PERC2 controller and it needed the megaraid_old drivers. I have also read in the SUSE website - if you do a search on Adaptec - there is one article that shows the raid controllers that are supported. I don't know what distro of Linux you are using but if it is SuSE it may not be supported.

Chao
SeverStorm

Just got done - I have LSI/AMI Megaraid / Dell PERC working with my fedora core 3 installation. It took me all week to figure it out. But I did

What you want to do is:
1) Go ahead and burn the FC3 CDs and the floppy image http://www.qidwai.net/~misbah/fc3megaraiddrv.img
or you can download it from:
http://www.nads-sc.uiowa.edu/~qidwai/fc3megaraiddrv.img

2) Now boot FC3 install proceed as normal, at a certain point during the initial text-based install, the key combination of hit "Alt-F2" will start working to access a shell. Keep trying after each screen, as I don't remember which one precisely it that you need to do this. It will for sure be after you have gone through the HD detect process.

3) From the shell remove default megaraid drivers: "rmmod megaraid_mbox; rmmod megaraid_mm; insmod megaraid.ko". You may need to switch around the order of "rmmod megaraid_mm; rmmod megaraid_mbox; insmod megaraid.ko".

4) Return to the text shell using "Alt-F1" and continue about your business. You should be able to install the OS as normal now.

5) After you are done installing - you will need to reboot. On the reboot, the boot will fail as the stock kernel that is installed, like the CD install kernel does not have drivers for the old model megaraid hardware.

6) So Now you will boot using the rescue CD. Follow through and allow it detect hardware and answer questions as best as you can. Once you get to the point where it informs you that it doesn't see a harddisk hit "Alt-F2" to access a shell. Remove default megaraid drivers: "rmmod megaraid_mbox; rmmod megaraid_mm; insmod megaraid.ko". You may need to switch around the order to "rmmod megaraid_mm; rmmod megaraid_mbox; insmod megaraid.ko".

4) You will now be able to "mkdir /tmp/megaraid; mount /dev/sda1 /tmp/megaraid"

5) You will "chroot /tmp/megaraid" to the mount location and recompile the kernel with the option "CONFIG_MEGARAID_NEWGEN=n".

6) Your done!


Let me know if anyone is still looking for a help - just email me at misbah@qidwai.net

M.

Can you please post instructions how did you get the megaraid_old driver loaded for FC3 installation. I followed the steps on Novell website for Suse Enterprise Server 9 and it works. Now I would like to get it done for FC3.

Where did you find these? I have a similar issue (wanting to install SuSE 9.2 Professional on a Dell PowerEdge 2300 w/Perc 2SC controller).

i'm also having a problem when trying to install fc3 on dell 2850 (perc4e/di included). can anyone post some instruction how to do it...please

Hello,

I've found articles on installing Mandrake 10 with the Perc 4e/Di raid controller, however the links to the new drivers were dead links.

Does anyone have the drivers for the Perc 4e/Di raid controller for Mandrake 10 ( linux kernel 2.6 )?

Thanks,

Kyle

I've added a second download link that may work better - look at the orignal post

Misbah

Anyone had any luck getting PERC 2 to work with Gentoo? Been trying for awhile now and just cant get it to see my drives.....

Tried putting in the 2005.0 cd and booting with the gentoo doscsi option.. can see AIC7xxx being loaded in but nothing else.
Manually modprobed in megaid_mbox but still cant see /dev/sda or /dev/sdb...

Any ideas anyone?

Hey Folks,

What I found out was the Mandrake 10 install with kernel 2.6.* doesn't have the drivers for the raid controller. The beta version of 10.2 does have the driver! I think 10.2 has a later 2.6 kernel that has the driver.

Or what I did was use the Mandrake 10 Installation, however I used the 2.4 kernel and that works the Perc4 Raid Controller.

Hope that help anyone else.

Kyle

I'm not sure if there are still folks out there trying to get old PERC cards to work with newer distros, but I wanted to convert a few PowerEdge 4400 systems we have into iSCSI targets so I filled them with drives and tried to load SuSE 10.2. After much searching for solutions I was having no luck getting the RAID volume recognized by the installer. Then I found this mailing list entry:

http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/l...ch/030075.html
and
http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...m#Objects_Menu

In a nutshell, changing the adapter's emulation mode to Mass Storage (from I2O) was all that was needed for the megaraid driver to load at install, as well as subsequent reboots.

Note: make sure you update the firmware on the card to ensure stability, and also change the emulation mode after the update - I found out the hard way that a firmware update reverts this setting to the default of I2O!


This may work for other distros and legacy PERC cards as well, but I haven't tested any.

Hope this helps...