No, more like hardware security. Would be great if in the event of a hardware failure I can swap out the drive versus rebuilding.
I didn’t get a chance to finish today but I am reinstalling with the single drive. I’ll report back.
Looking up backup options now.
Sync options to give data like for like can be set up to run at scheduled intervals.
Or lets say you have a system up and running, set up and all nice. You can dd the entire HD to a backup location.
Cloning an old drive to a new drive - openSUSE Forums
Or in a similar to the above - use clonezilla
Clonezilla
Thanks for the links and options. I will check these out once I get the install going 
OK,
I did the complete reinstall with the RAID disabled. I just have JBOD disks.
Now, all that I get is the blinking cursor. 
Any advice? I am experimenting with changing the boot order of disks in the BIOS.
OK, I changed the boot order and now I am back to where I started in the beginning of this post.
Any additional ideas?
So what exactly has changed?
What is **fdisk -l **giving now?
Which HD is first in Boot?
Where is grub?
I changed the array so that I now have two JBOD disks.
Here is the updated fdisk -l:
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa922a922
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 60801 488384001 42 SFS
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa8c1a8c1
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 60800 488375968+ 42 SFS
/dev/sdb2 60801 60801 8032+ 42 SFS
Disk /dev/sdc: 300.1 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0008e0b9
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 262 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdc2 * 263 2873 20972857+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc3 2874 36481 269956260 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdd: 300.1 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002257e
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 523 4200966 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdd2 524 1828 10482412+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdd3 1829 7050 41945715 83 Linux
/dev/sdd4 7051 36481 236404507+ 83 Linux
And here is the updated device.map file:
(hd0) /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000AAKS-75A7B0_WD-WMASY2102634
(hd3) /dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3300831SCE_9NF00VHP
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd2) /dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3300831SCE_4NF0SKC9
(hd1) /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000AAKS-07A7B0_WD-WCASY2167404
Lastly, here is the menu.lst file:
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Tue Apr 13 15:50:54 EDT 2010
# THIS FILE WILL BE PARTIALLY OVERWRITTEN by perl-Bootloader
# Configure custom boot parameters for updated kernels in /etc/sysconfig/bootloader
default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message
##YaST - activate
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Desktop -- openSUSE 11.2 - 2.6.31.12-0.2
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3300831SCE_4NF0SKC9-part2 resume=/dev/ata-ST3300831SCE_4NF0SKC9-part1 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x324
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.2 - 2.6.31.12-0.2
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3300831SCE_4NF0SKC9-part2 showopts apm=off noresume nosmp maxcpus=0 edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x31a
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Linux other###
title Linux other
rootnoverify (hd2,0)
chainloader +1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Floppy
rootnoverify (fd0)
chainloader +1
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Tue Apr 13 15:50:54 EDT 2010
# THIS FILE WILL BE PARTIALLY OVERWRITTEN by perl-Bootloader
# Configure custom boot parameters for updated kernels in /etc/sysconfig/bootloader
Let me know if you need me to do anything else.
Shouldn’t the (hd3) be at the top of the device map list. That is if this is the HD with the Linux partitions on it?
Notice in menu.lst it points to the system being at (hd0,1)
Hey,
I saw that. I regenerated the device.map file and edited accordingly to no avail.
I would like to point out that despite what i do to the map file hd0 always points to the disk that I set to boot first in the BIOS.
I can repost both the device.map and menu.lst files if you like.
Thanks again for your time.
device map - yes
menu.lst should not have changed
Thank you so much for all of your time.
I decided to just post the latest of everything; makes more sense.
So here goes, fdisk -l:
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa922a922
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 60801 488384001 42 SFS
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa8c1a8c1
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 60800 488375968+ 42 SFS
/dev/sdb2 60801 60801 8032+ 42 SFS
Disk /dev/sdc: 300.1 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0008e0b9
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 262 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdc2 * 263 2873 20972857+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc3 2874 36481 269956260 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdd: 300.1 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002257e
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 523 4200966 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdd2 524 1828 10482412+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdd3 1829 7050 41945715 83 Linux
/dev/sdd4 7051 36481 236404507+ 83 Linux
device.map:
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/sdb
(hd2) /dev/sdc
(hd3) /dev/sdd
And menu.lst:
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Tue Apr 13 15:50:54 EDT 2010
# THIS FILE WILL BE PARTIALLY OVERWRITTEN by perl-Bootloader
# Configure custom boot parameters for updated kernels in /etc/sysconfig/bootloader
default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd2,1)/boot/message
##YaST - activate
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Desktop -- openSUSE 11.2 - 2.6.31.12-0.2
root (hd2,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop root=/dev/sdc2 resume=/dev/sdc1 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x324
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.2 - 2.6.31.12-0.2
root (hd2,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop root=/dev/sdc2 showopts apm=off noresume nosmp maxcpus=0 edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x31a
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Linux other###
title Linux other
rootnoverify (hd2,0)
chainloader +1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Floppy
rootnoverify (fd0)
chainloader +1
I will add two things of note:
Let me know if you need anything else.
As far as I would be concerned sda and sdb are load of crud and I would assign them last place in any boot order of mine. Keep Linux up front as hd0 and hd1
Put grub to MBR of hd0 and be done.
If it’s easier for you, just re-install to sdc (to be hd0) to get the menu.lst to suit the new disk order.