Very Computer

> Hi,

> As far as I can tell (I don't have one myself),
> the promise FastTrak 66 works like this: It's, in
> the end, just an ata66 card, but has a bios that
> enables a real-mode driver so the booting system
> sees the raid-array as one drive. As soon as
> Windows boots, the real-mode drivers are thrown
> out and the windows drivers kick in. So surely it
> shouldn't be too difficult to do this in Linux,
> as you can access the drives in the RAID simply
> through hda and hdb ... it sounds like a
> new 'format' for md to recognise? That would make
> it possible for you to run the whole system off a
> software raid (lilo uses the bios so it CAN use
> the on-board software of the fasttrak66).

> (or is it me -> is there a way to load your
> kernel off a software RAID?)

> > Hi,

> > As far as I can tell (I don't have one myself),
> > the promise FastTrak 66 works like this: It's, in
> > the end, just an ata66 card, but has a bios that
> > enables a real-mode driver so the booting system
> > sees the raid-array as one drive. As soon as
> > Windows boots, the real-mode drivers are thrown
> > out and the windows drivers kick in. So surely it
> > shouldn't be too difficult to do this in Linux,
> > as you can access the drives in the RAID simply
> > through hda and hdb ... it sounds like a
> > new 'format' for md to recognise? That would make
> > it possible for you to run the whole system off a
> > software raid (lilo uses the bios so it CAN use
> > the on-board software of the fasttrak66).

> > (or is it me -> is there a way to load your
> > kernel off a software RAID?)

> Yes there is: see the Root-RAID-HOWTO

> Actually, I seem to remember the Promise-UATA66 and the Fasttrack66
> physically different: there was an article on Slashdot a few months
> back, complete with pictures, on how to turn the one into the other.
> Here it is:
> http://slashdot.org/articles/00/03/02/1545247.shtml

> MST