insert a raid card driver into the setup disk

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If I want to install RHEL 4.5 in a new server machine but no correct raid card driver in the setup disk, how I can merge/combine the raid card driver into the setup disk. During the installing, I cannot choose any other media to import/install the raid card driver.

iI
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james.radtke@siriusxm.com's picture Guru 6863 points
24 April 2014 1:30 PM

I have a few questions:
Does the host have a floppy drive (or do you have access to a USB-floppy)?
Are you installing from CD/DVD or Network/PXE?

It's been a while since I have messed around with RHEL 4, but I assume it is still similar to RHEL 5. I believe you have a few options at your disposal.
a.) You could rebuild the initrd.img on your installation media
b.) You could use dd= at install time (or just dd by itself)

Now - the following seems to indicate you can use a URL for the Driver Disk
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5/html-single/Installation_Guide/index.html
"Type linux dd=URL (where URL is the HTTP, FTP, or NFS address of a driver update image) at the boot prompt at the start of the installation process and press Enter. The installer will retrieve the driver update image from that address and use it during installation. "

I actually managed to find the RHEL 4 doc as well
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/4/pdf/Installation_Guide_x8664/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-4-Installation_Guide_x8664-en-US.pdf
check out Appendix E.1.2
I think it will point you in right direction.

Also: is this box on RHEL 4 HCL?

iI Community Member 35 points
18 June 2014 9:27 AM

Thanks a lot.
I also give up.
Now I try your method. Later on, I will report what is the result.

No floppy drive in a rack mount server (1 U)

iI Community Member 35 points
19 June 2014 2:10 AM

I am installing RHEL 4.5 from CD/DVD-ROM. I think it cannot find the hard drive which is connected to a raid card. Thus, do not start the installation at the beginning.

If I install RHEL 4.7, it can smoothly install. It means RHEL 4.7 has this raid card. For some reason (keep OS version, consistency, .....), I still need to install 4.5.
Question 1: How can I combine the correct raid card driver into RHEL 4.5 setup disk? or use the driver in RHEL 4.7 disk during install RHEL 4.5?

Directory/folder information of RHEL 4.5

O:\images>dir
Volume in drive O is RHEL_4-U5 i386 D
Volume Serial Number is 35E1-E6B9

Directory of O:\images

21/04/2007 17:48

.
21/04/2007 20:31 ..
21/04/2007 17:36 668 README
21/04/2007 22:26 1,096 TRANS.TBL
21/04/2007 17:36 5,718,016 boot.iso
21/04/2007 17:36 6,291,456 diskboot.img
21/04/2007 17:48 pxeboot
21/04/2007 17:48 xen
4 File(s) 12,011,236 bytes
4 Dir(s) 0 bytes free

Directory/folder information of RHEL 4.7

O:\images>dir
Volume in drive O is RHEL_4-U7 i386 D
Volume Serial Number is 4F75-76D4

Directory of O:\images

11/07/2008 15:06

.
11/07/2008 16:17 ..
11/07/2008 14:52 668 README
11/07/2008 19:50 1,096 TRANS.TBL
11/07/2008 14:52 6,311,936 boot.iso
11/07/2008 14:52 6,291,456 diskboot.img
11/07/2008 15:06 pxeboot
11/07/2008 15:06 xen
4 File(s) 12,605,156 bytes
4 Dir(s) 0 bytes free

The url in the "Appendix E.1.2" of "RHEL 4 doc" is not valid any more. Also, no driver images is in there (setup disk).
Question 2: where is the valid url of RHEL for driver media?

Thanks for any help in advance.

james.radtke@siriusxm.com's picture Guru 6863 points
20 June 2014 2:11 AM

I think you have a few options. I believe you should plan on rebuilding the installation media.

a.) I would try to use the initrd.img and vmlinuz from the 4.7 media to recreate the 4.5 media. Does anyone know if this would work?

b.) Otherwise - you could unpack the 4.5 initrd.img and add the RAID card driver and then rebuild the ISO.

http://nixcraft.com/showthread.php/13275-CentOS-RHEL-Add-Custom-Modules-To-Anaconda

Either choice is not exactly "lightweight" options - but, if you have to absolutely have 4.5 I think they should get you working.

iI Community Member 35 points
20 June 2014 1:51 AM

I can find a raid card driver for RHEL 4.5 from HP. It is a rpm file. I extract it to different format (cpio, rpm, tar, gz) but still fails to install this raid card driver during the beginning of installation.

Does anyone have idea to solve this case?

iI Community Member 35 points
20 June 2014 2:35 AM

Thanks James.

Do you which file format for RHEL4.5 is used to add driver during the beginning of installation ( in using "linux dd" )?

james.radtke@siriusxm.com's picture Guru 6863 points
20 June 2014 12:58 PM

Unfortunately I do not actually know what the layout of a Drivers Disk looks like.

If you are creating a floppy Driver Disk, I assume you would have to dd the floppy image to your actual floppy disk

# dd if=hpahcisr-1.2.0-14.rhel5.i686.dd  of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k

To answer your question:
a file with the "extension" of dd.gz is a Gzip'd dd image. I.e. a Disk Dump created in to an image.

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