RocketRAID 1740 - 8.04

[pucenavel]

I've looked through every thread I can find looking for a solution to my issue. None of the discussions have been able to fully solve the issue, though each has helped to make some gains here and there.

Here is my situation:
AMD XP2700+ (i686 architecture)
Ubuntu 8.04 is installed and running quite happily on internal IDE drive - and I want to keep it that way
I have a RocketRAID 1740 controller card - PCI connected to (4) 1TB Drives
The RAID BIOS sees the drives and they are configured in two RAID5 arrays, one of 2TB and one of 1TB
I want to actually see these drives and, I don't know, maybe copy a file or two onto them.


Please help! I've got too much $$$ tied up in this. If I can't make Ubuntu work I will have to fall back to Windows (more $$$).


What I know:

RocketRAID 1740 is not expressly supported on Ubuntu, but there is a source code driver available on the Highpoint website - the latest version (today being 10/11/08) is 2.1-080710
The drives are NOT initialized - online manufacturer documentation states that redundant arrays are not initialized by the BIOS, but by the software
In attempting to get the driver loaded, I have actually gotten as far as building it, installing it and loading it. What I don't know is if anything has gone awry. The best I've been able to do is get the RAID card to beep (alarm indicating array failure), but the BIOS shows all drives as OK. I believe the driver has fully loaded because I am able to disable it under Hardware Drivers - which (thank god) stops the beeping after a reboot.

Do I need to figure out how to "initialize" the disks from the OS?

Highpoint has a link to a file that unpacks as *.rpm files (those are RedHat, right?). No luck trying to install - apt-get doesn't like them.

The command I used was

sudo apt-get install hptsvr-3.13-4.i586.rpm

Please - please - there must be someone out there who has already done this and can give me some clear step by step instructions.

[thinkdez]

I don't have a RAID card myself but as for the software you are trying to install RPM's as you stated are not installable by apt. That's because RPM's are for REDHAT flavor's of Linux ie REDHAT,SuSE,CENTOS etc. Debian based distributions such as Ubuntu use .deb files as packages. Don't give up though, there is a way you can get RPM's to work in Debian based distro's with alien.

Run the following to install alien:

sudo apt-get install alien

Next download the RPM file
Then to convert a rpm to a deb file use the following:

sudo alien <insert rpm file name here>

That should provide you with a .deb file that you should be able to install. To install run the following:

sudo dpkg -i <Insert .deb file that was created above>

I hope this helps you out.

[bvanaerde]

I've got the same RAID controller... managed to install it using the source files. But I have to run some scripts in order to make them visible in Ubuntu.

When I get home, I'll post here what I did.

[bvanaerde]

Sorry, I made a little howto, but can't find it anymore.
This might be even better though:
http://www.highpoint-tech.cn/China/bios_rr1740c.htm

Don't ask me why, but there are Ubuntu files on the Chinese website of HighPoint. Why can't they put them on the english pages too

[bvanaerde]

Ok, I got it working!
Those drivers found on the Chinese website (see my post above), didn't work here, probably because I'm using Ubuntu 8.10 64bit. But there are drivers for up to 8.04, so they might work for you.

This is what I did:
Download the opensource driver:
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/bi...ensourcedriver
Extract the files to a folder (I used: rr174x-linux-src-v2.1).
Then do this in the terminal:

cd rr174x-linux-src-v2.1/product/rr1740pm/linux
sudo make install

After a reboot, the RAID was loaded. I'm a bit surprised it was so simple...

dmesg | grep rr174x

gave me this:

[ 12.832738] rr174x:RocketRAID 174x controller driver v2.1.08.0710 (Feb 17 2009 21:43:21)
[ 12.832780] rr174x:adapter at PCI 5:2:0, IRQ 18
[ 13.401941] rr174x:start channel [0,0]
[ 13.403378] rr174x:start channel [0,1]
[ 13.404000] rr174x:start channel [0,2]
[ 13.404000] rr174x:start channel [0,3]
[ 13.608011] rr174x:[0 0] Start channel soft reset.
[ 13.608031] rr174x:[0 1] Start channel soft reset.
[ 13.608050] rr174x:[0 2] Start channel soft reset.
[ 13.608068] rr174x:[0 3] Start channel soft reset.
[ 13.916002] rr174x:channel [0,0] started successfully
[ 13.916002] rr174x:channel [0,1] started successfully
[ 13.916002] rr174x:channel [0,2] started successfully
[ 13.916002] rr174x:channel [0,3] started successfully
[ 14.269157] scsi16 : rr174x

I guess this will also work for 8.04.

[babeliak]

Great, this way it worked for me.Strange that manufacturers driver doesn't work and user has to use "make" on souce.

[babeliak]

Ok, I got it working!
Those drivers found on the Chinese website (see my post above), didn't work here, probably because I'm using Ubuntu 8.10 64bit. But there are drivers for up to 8.04, so they might work for you.

This is what I did:
Download the opensource driver:
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/bi...enSourcedriver
Extract the files to a folder (I used: rr174x-linux-src-v2.1).
Then do this in the terminal:

After a reboot, the RAID was loaded. I'm a bit surprised it was so simple...


gave me this:


I guess this will also work for 8.04.

Wow, redownloaded source (just to make sure, it's same version 2.2 ), unpacked, checked readme (note the latest tested linux kernel is 2.6.25, I'm running 2.6.24-24-generic), than:

~$ cd /home/georg/Desktop/rr174x-linux-src-v2.2/product/rr1740pm/linux
~$ sudo make install

reboot and up and running full-speed again:

georg@server:~$ dmesg | grep rr174x
[   44.705244] rr174x: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.
[   44.705971] rr174x:RocketRAID 174x controller driver v2.2 (Aug 17 2009 20:23:09)
[   44.706015] rr174x:adapter at PCI 5:0:0, IRQ 20
[   45.281038] rr174x:start channel [0,0]
[   45.282489] rr174x:start channel [0,1]
[   45.283937] rr174x:start channel [0,2]
[   45.285385] rr174x:start channel [0,3]
[   45.481480] rr174x:[0 0] Start channel soft reset.
[   45.481502] rr174x:[0 1] Start channel soft reset.
[   45.481520] rr174x:[0 2] Start channel soft reset.
[   45.481539] rr174x:[0 3] Start channel soft reset.
[   45.840181] rr174x:channel [0,0] started successfully
[   45.922175] rr174x:channel [0,1] started successfully
[   46.004165] rr174x:channel [0,2] started successfully
[   46.086154] rr174x:channel [0,3] started successfully
[   46.149672] scsi0 : rr174x

$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda1

/dev/sda1:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  212 MB in  3.01 seconds =  70.36 MB/sec

Cheers again bvanaerde (have to save this page somewhere safe 8))