![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Sorry for the poor subject line, I don't really know how to frame my question in just a few words, and Google searches are failing me for that reason.
I have a system which boots from a RAID 1 array on a 3ware 9500S card. It is running Linux.
Connected to the mainboard - not the 3ware card - is an EIDE DVD drive, of which I want to flash the firmware.
This would seem to necessitate booting to Windows, which I need to install on the system.
What I thought to do was shut the machine down and remove the two drives of the RAID1 array - on which Linux is installed - and then install Windows XP on another drive connected to the 3ware card. The system doesn't have a floppy drive, so I will have to slipstream the 9500 drivers into a Windows installation CD in order to do this.
Once Windows is installed on the system, I can flash the firmware on the optical drive, then I figured to shut the machine down again & reinsert the two drives of the RAID array. At this time I can remove the disk that Windows was installed on and just delete it or whatever.
I was then assuming that rebooting with the two drives of the RAID array reinserted would leave the Linux system on them intact and that the system would boot from my Linux installation again.
But it has occurred to me: the system will have been live in the meantime with those drives absent. Won't it try to rebuild the array? Or otherwise consider it "degraded"? What will happen if I do this?
It wouldn't be very convenient to move the optical drive to another machine to do this, and the only other Windows PC currently in the house is a laptop (to which I cannot connect the EIDE optical drive, anyway).
Anyone got any suggestions? I was kinda thinking "easy, remove Linux disks, install Windows, replace Linux, job done", but I don't want the 3ware controller hosing my Linux install because it thinks it's "degraded".
Sorry if I've been verbose in describing the problem, but now the concern has occurred to me it's doing my head in. I'm not sure that I'm not making my own life complicated, and that there's not a much simpler way to do things.
The 3ware has several disks easily accessible from the front of the server. Accessing the mainboard or removing the optical drive is just a much bigger job because of the size & location of the server. I really do not want to have to do that.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
Stroller.
I have a system which boots from a RAID 1 array on a 3ware 9500S card. It is running Linux.
Connected to the mainboard - not the 3ware card - is an EIDE DVD drive, of which I want to flash the firmware.
This would seem to necessitate booting to Windows, which I need to install on the system.
What I thought to do was shut the machine down and remove the two drives of the RAID1 array - on which Linux is installed - and then install Windows XP on another drive connected to the 3ware card. The system doesn't have a floppy drive, so I will have to slipstream the 9500 drivers into a Windows installation CD in order to do this.
Once Windows is installed on the system, I can flash the firmware on the optical drive, then I figured to shut the machine down again & reinsert the two drives of the RAID array. At this time I can remove the disk that Windows was installed on and just delete it or whatever.
I was then assuming that rebooting with the two drives of the RAID array reinserted would leave the Linux system on them intact and that the system would boot from my Linux installation again.
But it has occurred to me: the system will have been live in the meantime with those drives absent. Won't it try to rebuild the array? Or otherwise consider it "degraded"? What will happen if I do this?
It wouldn't be very convenient to move the optical drive to another machine to do this, and the only other Windows PC currently in the house is a laptop (to which I cannot connect the EIDE optical drive, anyway).
Anyone got any suggestions? I was kinda thinking "easy, remove Linux disks, install Windows, replace Linux, job done", but I don't want the 3ware controller hosing my Linux install because it thinks it's "degraded".
Sorry if I've been verbose in describing the problem, but now the concern has occurred to me it's doing my head in. I'm not sure that I'm not making my own life complicated, and that there's not a much simpler way to do things.
The 3ware has several disks easily accessible from the front of the server. Accessing the mainboard or removing the optical drive is just a much bigger job because of the size & location of the server. I really do not want to have to do that.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
Stroller.