On 7/16/05, Kevin Lombardo <kevin.lombardo at gmail.com> wrote: > Well I guess I'll probably try to get an IDE and scrap the RAID, but I > would like to know: why does the NT/W2K boot loader boot off the array > just fine? > > alright, this has turned in to a weird story... first of all, this machine was originally configured with an IDE drive and a SATA RAID. Windows XP was installed on the IDE drive and nothing on the array. i booted off the FC4 disc and installed to the array. when it asked where i should install grub, i selected the MBR, which is on the IDE drive. upon reboot, grub locked up without even presenting the menu. so then, to simplify, i removed the IDE drive and reinstalled again to the array, and selected to install grub on MBR, which would now be on the array. again, grub locked up. i tried installing grub on a floppy, and was able to get in to a grub command shell, but then when trying to list the drives it did not display the array. then i tried asking TCLUG. i really appreciate the replies, and was considering what to do, although i still didn't get why grub wouldn't see the SATA drives. i mean, the BIOS sees the drives and actually presents them as a boot option. grub wasn't even getting to the menu. (btw, i did try this without the drives in an array, just left them as single drives with the same results) i thought the best thing to do was resize the NTFS partition and install FC4 to the IDE drive (i need to keep the XP install for work purposes). however, i wanted to fix my MBR first so that XP would boot (i was able to get in to XP with a boot disk). i restarted the computer with the XP bootable cd, and got a phone call as the machine was restarting, so i didn't have a chance to "press any key to boot from cd". i was talking on the phone and turned around to look at the screen and guess what? FC4 was booted. i restarted the computer again, and grub loaded no problem and booted right in to the install located on the array. i'm not a newbie, and i know i didn't run anything to change the MBR - it should have been the same as it was when i was having problems. but all of the sudden, everything works just like i thought it should in the beginning. now i just have to try to get grub to boot XP. anyway, things seem to be working great now. hopefully they'll stay that way. thanks for the help.