Kilian wrote: > Thanks a lot for your reply! > > I'm using lilo as bootloader, but as grub is way more modern, I might > just switch to grub. > > The thing is, the machine I'm working on is remote and I have no console > access, so everything is a bit tricky. It's already running, has two > identical SATA disks, the second one (sdb) is not used. What I want to > do is create a RAID 1 array with only sdb (but with the possibility to > add sda later). Then I boot from this new RAID array, repartition sda > and add it to the RAID array. I've gotten so far as setting up the RAID > array, chrooting into it and bootstrap a Debian system on it, compile an > new kernel, but when it comes to set up bootloaders, the howto I'm using > <http://juerd.nl/site.plp/debianraid> tells me to run: > > $ lilo > $ install-mbr /dev/sda > $ install-mbr /dev/sdb > > Do you think I could accomplish the same result by only using grub? > > -- Kilian > >
Without console access to the machine, lilo or grub is going to be something of a moot point because you are going to have to get the configuration correct the first time or you are completely out of luck. The nice thing about grub is that it has a console at boot where you can modify the booting kernel and the parameters, which is nice if you got you /boot/grub/menu.lst wrong in some way. But without a console, you only get what's in your menu.lst - so if that's wrong it won't boot. What you're saying sounds do-able, but you'll have to get everything completely right the first time. You're assuming that your chrooted build on /dev/sdb will boot. In the situation you're talking about, you don't really need an MBR on /dev/sdb. The only reason you would need an MBR on /dev/sdb would be if /dev/sda had a failure. For what you are describing, you need a properly set up MBR on /dev/sda which defaults to booting your root partition on /dev/sdb?. On a side note, if this is an important machine to you, you might to check out some sort of lights-out remote access which would get you remote access to the machine's console. It's a real life-saver when you can't get to the machine easily. Good luck. -Scott -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
