Perc3Di SCSI RAID + Adaptec 2810SA RAID = Fatal Grub Error?

[LinuxOnTheEdge]

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2650 with on-board Adaptec Perc3Di SCSI RAID controller (mirrored 18GB drives for OS). It also has an add-in Adaptec 2810SA 8-channel SATA RAID card. After installing FC3, and installing GRUB to the MBR of the mirrored 18GB drives for OS, when I boot the system, I get "GRUB Loading Stage2Read Error".

The Dell system and both RAID controllers were updated to their latest BIOS versions prior to installing the OS.

When I remove the add-in card from the system, grub works perfectly off of the on-board Adaptec Perc3Di SCSI RAID controller (mirrored 18GB drives for OS).

I don't think the latest Dell BIOS for this machine has the provision to boot from add-in cards first, or to prioritize add-in cards after the on-board devices.

I do know that the SATA add-in controller definately comes up first after POST before the on-board SCSI controller's BIOS.

I even tried (to no avail) booting into rescue mode, chrooting, and running:
"grub-install /dev/sda".

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[dslegend]

maybe the following will help:

http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linu ... 14331.html

Sorry im all thumbs with SCSI raid

[LinuxOnTheEdge]

When I remove the add-in card from the system, grub works perfectly off of the on-board Adaptec Perc3Di SCSI RAID controller (mirrored 18GB drives for OS).

That being the case, I don't think that link, though extremely informative (thank you), will help me.

Thanks anyway, though - hopefully someone will have an idea.

[Steel]

The only idea I have is when you install the SATA controller, it takes over as the primary "SCSI" adapter as seen by the BIOS. Try installing GRUB manually through its interface instead of using grub-install. (Sorry, can't remember the commands off the top of my head at the moment...)

[dslegend]

how about this link

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... did=259593


Also, since grub is starting, you can try to load the boot partition manually by not selecting a boot profile and then doing each command in order. By doing this, Grub will balk if you try to load an incorrect partition. Through this trial and error, you can see what partition would be the boot partition and if grub actually sees it. If you need more help on the grub stuff:

http://www.linux-universe.com/HOWTO/Ker ... bconf.html

especially check 16.2. Tips On GRUB

[LinuxOnTheEdge]

you can try to load the boot partition manually by not selecting a boot profile and then doing each command in order.

It's not getting far enough through the GRUB boot process to let me do that.

[LinuxOnTheEdge]

Well, as suggested by various people, I booted the system into rescue mode using the install cd. Once booted, I chroot'ed, then ran:

grub
grub> root(hd0,0)
grub> setup(hd0)

This command did not return any errors. All output looked successful and normal from my experience on single-disk systems.

/boot/grub/devices.map, fdisk -l, and grub tab expansion output all confirm that /dev/sda is indeed (hd0), and root is definately (hd0,0).

By the way, I also verified that /dev/sda1 is bootable, and that /dev/sdb1 is not bootable.

Now, when I boot the system, instead of getting a grub stage 2 error, I get a grub stage 1.5 error. Does this help anyone further diagnose the problem?