Installing Ubuntu 9.10 on Dell M6400 with Raid

[Matthew A Coulliette]

Hi all,

I was trying to install Ubuntu 9.10 on my new Dell Precision M6400, that
I bought from the Dell Depot.

As soon as I got it I installed 2 Western Digital 320gb Scorpio Sata
drives. I used the onboard Intel Matrix Storage Manager (v8.0.0.1039)
ICH9M-E to mirror the drives, (Raid 1). I gave the new volume a name,
"WDscorpioV01". So far, so good.

I downloaded the new Ubuntu 9.10 installation cd for amd64. I ran the
installation cd and was able to install 94% of the OS. Then, I got an
error message, "The 'grub' package failed to install into '/taget/'.

I tried installing 9.10 several times varing a few settings each time,
always with the same error about not being able to install grub.

I then tried installing 9.04 and it installs okay, however, when the
system reboots, it just sits there with a blinking cursor and does not
boot into the new system.

I decided to try installing 9.10 again, and during the partitioning
portion, I noticed that partitioner was seeing a 320gb hard disk. This
is where I believe the core of the problem is. It should only be seeing
a 298gb hard disk, since I am using hardware raid.

Next, I re-entered the Intel Raid Controller and deleted the raid
volume. Then, I re-entered the bios and changed the hard drive
configuration mode from Raid to S-ATA.

Finally, I tried the install again onto the first Sata drive, (without
hardware raid). I only partitioned the first drive and left the second
drive unpartitioned. (I was going to setup software raid, but that
option is not available on the normal install cd. It is available on the
'alternate' install cd). On step 8 of 8, I clicked the 'Advanced...'
menu and set it to install the boot loader into /dev/sda1. The
installation was succesful and finished without any errors. Although, I
am glad to know 9.10 runs on my new computer, this piece of success
really does not help me.

I decided to try installing 9.10 from the 'alternate' install cd next. I
went through the installation process as usual and when I got to the
partitioning section I setup software raid. I finished the installation
and rebooted into the new system successfully. This is a useable
configuration for me, although, I would prefer using hardware raid
instead of software raid.

If anybody knows how to setup hardware raid with ubuntu 9.10 (karmic
koala), I would love to hear about it.

MatthewMPP