Linux and RAID controllers

[Linflas]

I am trying to install OpenSuSE on an A7N8X-E DLX which has a built in SIL Raid controller. When the proposed partition scheme comes up it seems to "see" my RAID partitioning scheme even though I have the physical drives unplugged from the board and no power to them as well. Is it actually reading this info from the BIOS of the controller and more importantly will it ruin my Windows partitions when I eventually bring them back online? My original plan was to plug these drives back in and mount the NTFS partitions RO when in Linux and I don't want to do anything that will hurt the RAID because I am not yet ready to wipe it.

 

[Nothinman]

If the drives aren't plugged in I can't see how it could affect them, but then again I also wouldn't expect the driver to see the array either in that case.

 

[Linflas]

I found a pretty good explanation of what I am seeing here.

 

[Nothinman]

The fakeRAID stuff explains why it would show two separate disks instead of a RAID set but not why they would show up even if they're unplugged.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
The fakeRAID stuff explains why it would show two separate disks instead of a RAID set but not why they would show up even if they're unplugged.

My guess would be that it is reading the stored configuration data from the BIOS. It kind of seems like it is seeing how I have the RAID volume divided up and is using that as the basis for it's proposed partitioning scheme. If I get a chance I will try to do the install to this point on VMWare server and take some screenshots.