How To: Boot Using GRUB from a Compaq Smart Array RAID Controller

Alex Brandt Comments

Introduction

When utilizing GRUB to boot from a Compaq Smart Array there are a few items that aren't commonly encountered and require special configuration. The configuration required is quite simple but can require hours to determine.

Note

These instructions have been tested on Gentoo but should be generic enough to work on all distributions.

GRUB Configuration

I'm assuming that the system is installed and GRUB has been installed as well. A working GRUB configuration is shown below:

System Message: ERROR/3 (<string>, line 20)

Cannot find pygments lexer for language "grub"

.. code-block:: grub

    default 0
    timeout 3
    splashimage=(hd0,4)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

    title=linux-2.6.20-gentoo-r8
        root (hd0,4)
        kernel /boot/bzImage-2.6.20-gentoo-r8 root=/dev/ida!c0d0p7

Note

The boot partition for the above example is partition five on the first disk.

The interesting thing about this configuration is the exclamation point (!) between the first subdirectory and the device node in the device node's path. Because the device name in the configuration has an exclamation point we need to manually update the device map, /boot/grub/device.map, accordingly. The corresponding device map for the above GRUB configuration is shown below:

System Message: ERROR/3 (<string>, line 41)

Cannot find pygments lexer for language "grub"

.. code-block:: grub

    (fd0) /dev/fd0
    (hd0) /dev/ida/c0d0

Note

If you don't have a floppy it doesn't require a device mapping.

Installing GRUB to the MBR

The last requirement is to install GRUB (with the provided configuration) to the master boot record (MBR).

Begin by entering the GRUB command line interface:

/sbin/grub --batch --device-map=/boot/grub/device.map --config-file=/boot/grub/grub.conf --no-floppy

Once you're in, use the following commands to install GRUB:

System Message: ERROR/3 (<string>, line 64)

Cannot find pygments lexer for language "grub"

.. code-block:: grub

    grub> device (hd0) /dev/ida/c0d0
    grub> root (hd0,4)
    grub> setup (hd0)
    grub> quit

Conclusion

At this point GRUB should be installed and configured correctly. The only thing left is rebooting the machine to verify that it worked.

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