Re: New RAID1 machine "No bootable media"

[Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>]

Yeah, same thing here. This is the first machine I've owned in years
that actually required that.

Basically it failed to boot as RAID so I blew the install away, did it
as non-RAID and had the same problem. Guess that might be it and tried
it non-RAID and it worked.

I haven't gone back to a RAID install yet due to issues in my other
thread. Until I solve those I think I'll stick with the current
install.

Thanks,
Mark

On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 7:29 PM, Simon Matthews
<simon.d.matthews@gmail.com> wrote:
> Did you mark the partition as a bootable partition (using fdisk or
> cfdisk, etc)? I encountered this problem very recently. It seems to
> afflict 945G chipsets and it would not be unreasonable to think that
> other Intel chipsets could have the same issue. Another example of
> this:
> http://www.vyatta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1976
>
> Can you boot off a livecd such as systemrescuecd and then use that to
> boot off the hard drive (using the "disk1" boot option)?
>
> Simon
>
> On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 8:12 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>   I brought up new hardware yesterday for my first RAID install. I
>> followed this Gentoo page describing a software RAID1/LVM install:
>>
>> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86+raid+lvm2-quickinstall.xml
>>
>>   Note that I followed this page verbatim, even if it wasn't what I
>> wanted, with exceptions:
>>
>> a) My RAID1 is 3 drives instead of 2
>> b) I'm AMD64 Gentoo based.
>> c) I used grub-static
>>
>>  I did this install mostly just to get a first-hand feel for how to
>> do a RAID install and to try out some of the mdadm commands for real.
>> My intention was to blow away the install if I didn't like it and do
>> it again for real once I started to get a clearer picture about how
>> things worked. For instance, this set of instructions used RAID1 on
>> the /boot directory which I wasn't sure about.
>>
>>   NOTE: THIS INSTALL PUTS EVERYTHING ON RAID1. (/, /boot, everything)
>> I didn't start out thinking I wanted to do that.
>>
>>   So, the first problem is that on the reboot to see if the install
>> worked the Intel BIOS reports 'no bootable media found'. I am very
>> unclear how any system boots software RAID1 before software is loaded,
>> assuming I understand the Gentoo instructions. The instructions I used
>> to install grub where
>>
>> root (hd0,0)
>> setup (hd0)
>> root (hd1,0)
>> setup (hd1)
>> root (hd2,0)
>> setup (hd2)
>>
>> but the system finds nothing to boot from. to me this sounds like BIOS
>> so looking around I'm currently set up for compatibility but would
>> think that switching to AHCI support would be a better long term
>> solution. Any chance this setting is the root cause?
>>
>>   I can boot from CD and assemble the /boot RAID
>>
>> livecd ~ # cat /proc/mdstat
>> Personalities : [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
>> unused devices: <none>
>> livecd ~ # mdadm --assemble /dev/md1 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1
>> mdadm: /dev/md1 has been started with 3 drives.
>> livecd ~ # cat /proc/mdstat
>> Personalities : [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
>> md1 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdc1[2] sdb1[1]
>>      112320 blocks [3/3] [UUU]
>>
>> unused devices: <none>
>> livecd ~ # mdadm --misc --stop /dev/md1
>> mdadm: stopped /dev/md1
>> livecd ~ # cat /proc/mdstat
>> Personalities : [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
>> unused devices: <none>
>> livecd ~ #
>>
>>
>> Everything I expect to see on /boot seems to be there when using ls.
>>
>>   Note that one possible clue - when the Intel BIOS screen first
>> comes up I see some hex digits flashing around in the lower right.
>> I've not seen this before on other machines and I beleive the
>> motherboard (DX58SO) does support some sort of RAID in hardware so
>> maybe there's confusion there? I've not selected RAID in BIOS but
>> possible it's trying to be too clever?
>>
>>   Let me know what other info might be needed. I have concerns about
>> this install and will likely blow it away today and do a new one but I
>> figured maybe there's an opportunity to learn here before I do that.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Mark
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