Description of problem: FC6 anaconda does not correctly recognize mirrored (RAID0) partitions constructed using software RAID under FC4. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: This arises during installation from the FC6 DVD, and I can reproduce it. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot from FC6 DVD and make usual selections 2. 3. Actual results: Anaconda does not find the Linux installation. Software RAID partition /dev/md0 is not recognized. Only one side of the mirrored partition is perceived as software RAID while the other side is perceived as free space. Expected results: Proper upgrade. Additional info: There was no unusual behavior during installation: ohci1394 and ata_piix drivers loaded, media check OK, video card found, language and keyboard selected. The next page did not offer an upgrade option. It read "Installation requires partitioning..." The pull-down menu on that page presented the option "Remove linux partitions..." Further down, "Select drives to use for this installation." One selection was selected and grayed out: mapper/isw_ddgigcdffi_RAID_Volume1 228942 MB . There was no mention of /dev/md0. Under FC4, I partitioned the drive to have a boot partition as ext3, swap space, and two partitions of identical size that were combined to form one mirrored RAID device /dev/md0. I have never seen /dev/mapper before with FC4. To get more information, I selected Custom Layout and continued. I got a dialogue box telling me "/dev/mapper/isw_ddgigcdffi_RAID_Volume1p3 has a partition of type 0x82 (Linux swap) but does not appear to be formatted as a Linux swap partition. Would you like to format this partition as a swap partition?" I answered "no" and continued. The next page displayed the partition table. At the top was the partition map. Drive /dev/mapper/isw_ddgigcdffi_RAID_Volume1 (228942 MB) Model: Linux device-mapper The first part in the map (horizontal bar) was labelled "mapper/isw_ddgigcdffi_RAID_Volume1" for 118276 MB. Second was a thin space (illegible, presumably swap). Third was free space for 114470 MB. The detailed description under "Hard Drives" read as follows. Hard Drives type size start end /dev/mapper/isw_ddgigcdffi_RAID_Volume1 /dev/mapper/isw_ddgigcdffi_RAID_Volume1p1 ext3 102 1 13 /dev/mapper/isw_ddgigcdffi_RAID_Volume1p2 software 112377 14 14339 RAID /dev/mapper/isw_ddgigcdffi_RAID_Volume1p3 swap 1992 14340 14593 free free 114471 14594 29186 This is related to a problem with FC5. FC5 did not recognize the RAID partitions nor /dev/md0 at all. This bug may be related to #186312, #192542, and #186182.
Does it work if you boot the installer with "nodmraid" on the command line?
Yes! When I entered "linux nodmraid", anaconda recognized FC4 on my /dev/md0 and then the upgrade went smoothly. Thank you for suggesting this. Is this something that can be fixed? Or will I always have to specify nodmraid in future upgrades?
This means your disks have RAID metadata from the BIOS on them. It's probably best to go into the RAID BIOS and remove the raidsets.
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This problem still persists in Fedora 7, which is what I am presently running. I used "nodmraid" and that worked, so it's the same fix as for Fedora 6, so I guess it's the same problem. As bugs go, this is serious in the sense that it completely blocks an upgrade, but not so serious in that there is an easy work-around. By the way, the comment from Peter Jones didn't make sense to me as I have no "RAID BIOS". The RAID is Linux software RAID, so I don't see how there could be a separate BIOS. Maybe I'm just missing something.
so before linux boots, there's no screen that appears showing the disks in your raid set, with something like a 'press f10 to configure' (or similar wording?) what controller type are these disks plugged into ?
There is a bug where the dmraid stuff just blocks. This bug has not been solved yet and we are still working to fix it. However there is a work around. If you use nodmraid, the installer will ignore/skip the dmraid stuff allowing the install to finish. This is a workaround and does not fix the problem. There is a long list of bugs that are filed against this problem. This bug is one of them. We have decided to close all the related nodmraid bugs and leave just one open that will represent all of the others. So this bug will be duped for this reason. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 409931 ***