nVidia dmraid RAID sets not configured, not usable

[Leo Richard Comerford]

Binary package hint: debian-installer

On 10.4.1, 10.10 beta and 10.10 dailies up to at least 6 October, the Debian installer fails to detect a four-disk dmraid RAID5 on an ASUS M4N78 Pro motherboard (BIOS v. 1205). Neither the RAID itself nor the component drives appear on the Debian installer's Partition disks screen. /var/log/syslog shows error messages from device-mapper, disk-detect and the kernel.

The Debian installer UI itself fails to report the failure to configure the "fakeraid"; (again) it simply omits the RAID or any of its components from the list of disks on the Partition disks screen. Even when this leaves no disks to install on, the installer will simply show the Partition disks screen with no disks listed and offer the two options "Undo changes to partitions" and "Finish partitioning and write changes to disk".

The installer also fails to detect the disks when set up as two two-disk RAID1s, failing in a different fashion.

Logs from failed installations follow.

[Leo Richard Comerford (lrc1)]

Logs from failed installation as above, this time using the Ubuntu 10.10 daily from 19 September and the four-disk RAID5 setup (with no additional disks).

[Leo Richard Comerford (lrc1)]

Logs from failed installation as above, this time using Ubuntu 10.4.1 and the four-disk RAID5 setup (without additional disks).

[Leo Richard Comerford (lrc1)]

Logs from failed installation as above, this time using Ubuntu 10.4.1 and two separate mirrored pairs (with no additional disks).