I2O capable AMI MegaRAID controllers

Support knowledgebase (i2o_megaraid)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Version 7.1
This article refers to an older version of SuSE Linux. Therefore some of the informations given in this article may be outdated or the article may contain stale links.

Kernel: Version 2.2.18

Symptom:

You wish to install SuSE Linux 7.1-i386 on a system featuring an I2O capable American Megatrends, Inc (AMI) MegaRAID controller. (Occurrence of the problem described below was observed on an AMI MegaRAID Ultra2/5 PCI RAID Controller, Adapter Type: 438).

YaST2 starts and correctly detects the logical MegaRAID drives /dev/i2o/hd? as available for the installation. However, the kernel message console (Ctrl-Alt-F4) soon starts to display many error messages of the i2o_block device driver, and the system will eventually hang with a non-recoverable disk I/O error (typically during package installation).

Cause:

The I2O drivers in the Linux 2.2.18 kernel used by the SuSE 7.1 installation system do not yet work well with this hardware and should not be used.

Upon starting the SuSE Linux installation, however, these drivers get loaded automatically at a very early stage (even before YaST2 will start), provided the MegaRAID controller is set up to use I2O emulation mode.

Solution:

Fortunately, the MegaRAID controller can also be driven by the traditional megaraid driver instead of the I2O drivers. You have two ways to proceed:

  1. During system startup, enter the MegaRAID BIOS setup (Ctrl-M). In Menu: Objects/Adapter/Emulation switch the emulation mode from I2O to Mass Storage. Reboot.

    Now Linux won't detect any I2O devices on this controller, and will load the megaraid driver instead. The logical disks configured on the MegaRAID will then appear (as usual) as ordinary SCSI disks /dev/sd?. YaST2 can use these disks as installation targets for SuSE Linux.

  2. Skip the automatic loading of modules and instead load the megaraid driver manually. To do so, boot the SuSE Linux installation medium and wait for the first greeting screen to appear. At the
    boot:
    
    prompt enter the word:
    manual
    
    This launches the traditional text-mode linuxrc startup routine which does not load any modules automatically.

    After the initial settings of language etc., enter the submenu Kernel Modules (hardware drivers) / Load SCSI Modules and select the megaraid driver. When the module has been loaded successfully, return to the main menu, select Start Installation/System and indicate your installation medium. Next step is the choice between YaST1 and YaST2 as main installation routine: you can now choose YaST2 and continue as in a standard installation.


Keywords: MEGARAID, I2O, AMI, INSTALLATION, SCSI

Categories: SCSI

SDB-i2o_megaraid, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 07. Mär 2001
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 07. Mär 2001 by kgw (sdb_gen 1.40.0)