[nylug-talk] strange happening with HDD reloading Linux

[Carlos Alfaro]

I forgot to mention that the tools for partitioning the disk (all distros I tried) only show one HDD, not the second one and they show it under mapper/sil_XXXXX.

This leads me to believe that something was left in the HDD but I have no idea where since I have erased the MBR and the problem persists.

Thanks again

----- Original Message ----
From: Carlos Alfaro <carlosalfaro at yahoo.com>
To: nylug-talk at nylug.org
Sent: Monday, August 7, 2006 3:24:59 PM
Subject: [nylug-talk] strange happening with HDD reloading Linux

I created a Fedora (5) file server.  In order to have some protection I 
installed a SIIG Raid Card ( I know I could have done it with the 
partition manager but I wanted control before the hdd were working) 
which allowed me to set 2 seagate ATA HDD in Raid 1 (80 gig each).

After I was happy with the machine and confident that I could rebuild 
it, I proceeded to test Suse.  It worked fine but was happier with the 
Fedora performance and decided to go back.  This time however, I was 
going to use LVM (and I have not both HDD attached directly to the MB) 
to put both HDD together to have more space and back it  up with tape. 
I started the installation and now every time I try to load a distro 
(suse, fedora, mandrake, etc) when I am about to partition the disk it 
never shows both HDD, like it used to and it would tell me that they 
were individual HDD.  Now all attempts show me one HDD under 
mapper/sil_afaecfedaiai   The sil is the chipset on that Raid card I 
used before.  (I now have both hdd attached directly to the MB).  So I 
loaded qparted to make sure the hdd were clean, same result.  I loaded 
partition manager and erased the MBR on both machines to the standard 
MBR used with the win98 boot disk.  Same result.  It seems no matter 
what I do there is some trace of my old setup on the HDD.  If I use only 
one drive it does not happen.  Either drive stand alone will not have 
the problem.  I loaded linux in one drive and then added the second 
drive, the mbr got damaged and it will not boot again.

Anyone has an idea why the installer would show mapper/sil?  is there 
any utility I can use?  I already even went and made the utils write 
zeros to both drives (that took a loooooonnnnnnggggg time) and I am 
still getting no where.  Any suggestion or ideas will be greatly 
appreciated.

Please let me know if you have ideas.

Thank you in advanced for taking the time to read this message
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