• fab
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  • From: wonderland
  • Registered: 2012-02-03
  • Posts: 8

Topic: [solved] Crunchbang raid installation

Hello everyone,

I have been using crunchbang for over a year now. When I installed it for the first time I used the debian netinstaller as described here http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/netinstall
Worked like a charm. I was able to set up a /boot partition on a raid1 volume spanning 4 disks and a raid10 volume for / spanning 4 disks.

Now I wanted to install from scratch the new crunchbang version. Raid setup and everything works without a flaw only when it comes to grub installation, everything fails (or I fail). I tried using super grub disk, live cds, chrooted but nothing worked for me.
I am almost giving up.

My setup is a followed:

- 4x hdd 500gb
- 1x 200mb ext2 partition /boot on on raid1 spanning all 4 hdds (not encrypted)
- 1x 997gb ext4 partition for / on raid10 spanning all 4 hdds (encrypted)

I can't get grub to install to /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc or /dev/sdd which used to work before.
Is there anything I can do?
Maybe installing a minimal debian system with a new debian 6.0.4 cd, then modifying /etc/apt/sources.list to statler then what?

Any help is appreciated.

Regards
Fab

Last edited by fab (2012-02-04 17:04:02)

  • From: A kingdom in transition
  • Registered: 2011-06-24
  • Posts: 2,138

Re: [solved] Crunchbang raid installation

Maybe this can help? https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 68#p992768

If you poke the bear it is going to come after you.
  • fab
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  • From: wonderland
  • Registered: 2012-02-03
  • Posts: 8

Re: [solved] Crunchbang raid installation

Thank you for your advice xaos52. Meanwhile I tried a clean debian 6.0.4 install, works as expected without creating any additional partition. Only /boot and / on raid and then install grub2 to /dev/sda.
Any other hints maybe?

  • fab
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  • From: wonderland
  • Registered: 2012-02-03
  • Posts: 8

Re: [solved] Crunchbang raid installation

Ok I finally made it.
Here is how I did it (just in case someone encounters the same error as me).

1. Download a debian 6.0.4 image (doesn't really matter which one - I went with the minimum cd).
2. Do a clean install with raid, encryption.
3. Boot the system, login as root, add statler/crunchbang sources to /etc/apt/sources.list (taken from live cd)
5. nano /etc/apt/preferences and add statler/squeeze apt-pinning (taken from live cd)
4. Do apt-get update, apt-get upgrade
5 Copy over /etc/skel folder from live cd to new system. In order to do so, I installed mdadm and cryptsetup in the live cd, mounted my encrypted raid volumes and copied over the skel folder.
6. Rebooted the pc, added a new user and bingo - everything was there.

Maybe there is an easier and/or more elegant solution but this did the trick for me.
Feel free to ask me further questions if you experience any problems.

@mods: please mark as "solved".

Regards
Fab

  • From: A kingdom in transition
  • Registered: 2011-06-24
  • Posts: 2,138

Re: [solved] Crunchbang raid installation

Thanks for the feedback, fab smile
Here at the #! forums we mark our own threads as 'solved' by editing the header in the first post.

If you poke the bear it is going to come after you.