Hi Paul,
> Tried that, and then tried installing with software raid. However it
> installs fine, but refuses to boot. My friend says it say something like it
> is unable to boot from the drive. He's also tried both GRUB and Lilo....
Some vendors have switched to using REALLY cheap SATA onboard controllers,
which aren't only fake-RAID, but also fake-SATA. They will not work under any
OS without the correct driver.
The chipset there only provides just barely enough logic to check the HDs and
to load the driver, but from then on it simply won't boot unless you have the
driver.
One example there is the Intel SR1530HSH/SH server chassis, which uses an LSI
SATA controller (some low end SuperMicro chassis also use it). And driver
support here is lousy as well, as LSI or Intel only provide the driver in
binary form (for RHEL4 or RHEL5), which will more often that not get you in
troubles as it may not work with the current CentOS kernels. Even if it does,
it may break during the next kernel upgrade.
So best way here is to use something that works out of the box. At the worst
this may mean: Get a SATA add-on card that works with CentOS4 and disable the
onboard controller.
--
With best regards,
Michael Stauber