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Hi everyone.
I just tried to install ClearOS 7.4 on my HPE PL MS Gen10, a former "minebox"...
I did manage an installation from a downloaded iso to a new usb pen drive I inserted instead of the one that came with it..
During installation NO harddrives were found. Now I have added two more hdds, so I have 4 x 4tb disks, they are shown in bios so I know they are correctly inserted. But even if I try to re-install clearOS (boot from my installation medium) the HDDs are not listed.

What am I doing wrong here?
Wednesday, September 05 2018, 02:03 PM
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Tuesday, October 02 2018, 06:31 PM - #Permalink
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After a long chat today with HPe Support, the solution is as follows (at least as far as I understood it):
The built in Raid controller will not "forward" any information about the connected disks as long it is not used to configure a raid 0/1/10.
There is no way to deactivate the controller.

Even when in BIOS the HDDs are listed as seperate SATA-Devices (instead of one "marvell" Device), still the controller blocks the communication.

As soon as i create a raid 10 array for example with the 4 hdds using marvell uefi raid configuration, the created array is shown and can be used during clearOS installation. I don´t know why this is. But .. at least I can use my hdds now..
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  • Accepted Answer

    Friday, September 07 2018, 05:14 PM - #Permalink
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    First of all : thank you for answering.
    I wonder what I did wrong during set-up or while Installing ClearOS to have this kind of problem.

    My gen10 uses the newest bios (za10a360) but I cannot find any option to disable bios raid.
    When I press ctrl+m (or type in RAID in UEFI shell) I can see my 4 HDDs listed under the marvell controller, but since I did not create a Raid volume with it, the marvell controller has nothing to do with my drives I think.

    I tried to install clearOS in Legacy mode and in Uefi mode. The HDDs are shown in Bios but not during installation to select. All four HDDs are of the same type; 2 came with the box, two are new.

    I have a working installation of ClearOS in Uefi mode on my usb stick and I can connect to a running clear os installation on the "minebox" via ssh client. If I follow the commands in the second video you linked (fdisk -l) my hdds are NOT listed. :(

    And yes, I think i need to open a ticket.
    Thanks again for you trying to help me out here!
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  • Accepted Answer

    Wednesday, September 05 2018, 05:37 PM - #Permalink
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    I have the same setup at home (4x4tb drives in a MicroServer Gen10). The only thing that I can think of is that you may have the BIOS level RAID turned on. The BIOS RAID (not true hardware RAID) is not compatible with any version of Linux. This includes ClearOS. So if it is on and configured, you won't see the drives.

    When you get to the setup where you can see the drives. I would suggest you create a RAID partition for the base OS (the / partition) of about 80 GB and have it RAID 1 across ALL the disks. That way, you can ALWAYS recover your OS and troubleshoot regardless of how many disks survive a problem. RAID 1 over all disks is pretty awesome when it comes to recovery. Do this with the /boot/ and swap partition as well. Because you cannot RAID FAT, you won't be able to mirror the /boot/efi partition but if you create a /boot/efi1, /boot/efi2/, and /boot/efi3 partition of the same or similar size on the other drives, you can manually copy or sync the data from time to time off of your /boot/efi partition.

    Lastly, create a big RAID for your main data volume. You can also create a RAID 10 here of a portion of your disks if you wanted or needed a 'fast' partition to put VMs, databases, caches, or other speedy things.

    Here is a video on how to set up RAID during the install:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDjWP4eFwE

    If you end up with unused space after the install (because you did a minimal install) and need a manual RAID build process from command line, this video will help:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgJkfd8O-j8

    Lastly, because you have a Minebox. You probably qualify for free support here so feel free to send a ticket in ClearCARE through your ClearSDN portal. Or you can chat it out here in the community. Either way, you'll be able to get this going...never fear.
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