I have been trying for a few days to install CentOS 5.4 on an IBM x306 and I cannot get it to properly handle the Adaptec Embedded SATA HostRAID Controller. I have been working with Linux for a few years, but this is new territory for me. I typically use Debian-based distros, but I did some research on the IBM site and found out that RHEL is a supported OS for this machine. So, I decided to give Cent a try. I have some experience with Fedora, so it's not totally foreign to me.
Anyway, I'm a bit confused. Using the IBM RAID utility, I set up a mirrored pair of 1GB SATA HDDs. When I run the Cent installer, it sees the pair as a single array. I am able to partition the array and complete the install, but when I boot into the OS, it sees the drives as 2 separate devices, sda and sdb. I can pull either one of the drives and boot with a single disk, but it doesn't seem to behave as a mirrored pair. If I make changes on sda, they are not replicated to sdb. Also, I can't use the cli or GParted to format the existing space on the array. I get an error either way. I believe this is because Cent doesn't have a driver for the RAID controller, but I don't see why it would work in the installer, but not the installed OS.
My next approach was to start over and attempt to run 'linux dd' at the start of the installation. I tried to find the driver for the controller on the IBM site so I could load it when prompted, but couldn't find a newer version than RHEL 4 Update 3 (I'm assuming this would coordinate with CentOS 4.3). I tried it anyway, but when I select the floppy during the setup, it tells me it's not for this version of CentOS. I read several times that there are .img files that might help me in the 'Images' directory of disk one, but I only see diskboot.img, minstg2.img, and stage2.img. I don't think any of these are what I'm looking for. I thought there was supposed to be a drvblock.img or driverdisk.img.
At this point, I'm at total loss. I have done multiple searches in Google and been all through the IBM documentation, but without success. Could anyone help me out?