Is it possible to run the Intel ICH7R SATA RAID on Linux?

[Stephen W. Clarke]

Thank you all for your comments.

Len. You are correct the kernel in WBEL4 is 2.6.9.

I'm thinking I'll likely try installing Fedora Core 5 which uses 2.6.16 so
I can keep the "Red Hat" style. I'm running CentOS on my PBX but it's also
using 2.6.9.

Thanks again for the advise.

Stephen


> On Mon, Jun 05, 2006 at 01:49:13PM -0400, Stephen W. Clarke wrote:
>> I'm trying to install Whitebox EL4 on a brand new server we just got.
>>
>> It came with the Intel ICH7R SATA RAID. (I'm pretty sure its a software
>> RAID and is designed to work only with Windows.) My question is, does
>> anyone out there know how I can go about making it work with Linux. My
>> Linux install disk does recognize the HDD even with the RAID turned off.
>
> Which kernel version does your install disk have?
>
> In my experience (with in ICH5R) the bios had to be set to native sata
> mode (the default was combined mode, which emulates ide for dos and
> windows installer).
>
> I believe the ICH7R if set to native mode should work with the AHCI
> driver in newer 2.6 kernels (probably about 2.6.12 or higher if I
> remember correctly).
>
> The fakeraid will not work, unless your distribution does dmraid, and
> even then I wouldn't recomend it.  Linux software raid as at least as
> fast, and is portable between machines, and you can check the status
> under linux.
>
> Well looking around, whitebox el4 uses 2.6.9, which is too old for AHCI,
> and too old for the ICH7R in general as far as I can tell.  You will
> have to find an installer with a newer kernel with AHCI sata controller
> support, and turn of the raid in the bios and make sure it's set to ahci
> mode.
>
> If you are lucky it might work in a compatibility mode if set to native
> or something, if the sata_piix driver recognizes it as compatible with
> older ich chips, although with a different PCI id, that isn't likely.
>
> Len Sorensen
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Stephen W. Clarke
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