NVIDIA Linux SATA RAID Driver Package Readme
[Jan. 19th, 2007]
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INTRODUCTION
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This archive provides drivers and RAID management tools for SATA RAID controllers on
NVIDIA nForce 550/570/590, NVIDIA nForce professional 3600/3400/3050 chipsets.
For driver installation, we provide two ways to install: an rpm driver package and a floppy driver
disk. For MediaShield tool, a RAID management tool from NVIDIA, the rpm package is required.
All rpm packages are located in the .\RPM folder, and the floppy driver disk files are located
in .\DriverDisk
Section 1 lists the file structure of this package.
If a SATA RAID disk is needed for installation (for example, if the OS is to reside
on a RAID array), the drivers need to be loaded during the OS installation process via the
provided driver disks. Refer to section 2 for how to create a driver diskette.
Refer to section 3 for how to run the MediaShield tool.
Section 4 lists miscellaneous problems and information when running the RAID driver and MediaShield
tool on an NVIDIA platform.
1) File structure
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.\RPM
Contains driver and MediaShield tool rpm packages for various Linux distributions. Please choose one
corresponding driver rpm package for installation. The MediaShield tool rpm package is suitable
for different flavors of Linux - you only need to distinguish between 32bit and 64bit platforms and
select the right one.
Install the rpm packages as follows: rpm -ivh NvRaid-XXX.rpm
.\DriverDisk
Contains the driver disk files for OS installation. Please select the files from corresponding folders
for different flavors of Linux. The folder named 'i686' represents a 32bit platform, and 'x86_64'
represents a 64bit platform.
2) INSTALL Linux to a SATA RAID drive
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Prepare a SATA RAID driver diskette and load the driver during OS installation:
2.1) Copy the files located in the DriverDisk folder (e.g. .\DriverDisk\i686\RHEL4U4-2.6.9-42.EL) to
a formatted diskette.
2.2) Insert the Linux OS install disc into the CD/DVD ROM drive then start the installation.
2.3)
For SLES and SuSE Linux:
Press F5 then select 'Yes' at the first installation screen.
Go to step 2.7)
For RHEL and Fedora Linux:
At the first installation screen, please append the parameters "linux dd"
("linux dd askmethod" for network installation) at the "boot:" prompt then
press the Enter key.
2.4) At the "Driver disk" dialog box, press "Yes".
2.5) Next, if a "Driver Disk Source" dialog box appears, select "fd0" and press "OK".
2.6) At the "Insert Driver disk" dialog box, insert your SATA driver diskette into the
floppy drive and press "OK" to continue.
2.7) Continue with the installation as normal.
3) Run the MediaShield tool
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After installing the MediaShield tool rpm package, a shortcut to the management tool (named
'nvraid') will show on the desktop - double click it to use NVIDIA's MediaShield utility.
note:
For a new installed system, please make sure ever enter X-Window once, because Under some distributions, the
directory '/root/Destop' doesn't exist if you never login the X-Window, which will cause the MediaShield tool
rpm installer can't find that directory and failed to create the shortcut.
4) Miscellaneous
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4.1) The NVIDIA MediaShield tool requires Firefox version 1.5 or later.
Previous versions of Firefox have a memory leak bug when executing CGI programs, which will cause MediaShield
to hang when left open for several hours. The latest Firefox can be found at http://www.mozilla.com
4.2) Please uninstall any older version of the NVIDIA RAID driver and MediaShield tool
before installing the new version:
Run "rpm -ivh NvRaid-XXX.rpm" to install
Run "rpm -e NvRaid-XXX" to uninstall
After install or uninstall you should always reboot the system.
4.3) In general, fdisk only supports up to 2TB because it uses MS-DOS partition table format. A partition tool that
supports GPT format (e.g. parted) should be used for arrays with 2TB size or above.
4.4) Boot arrays must be 2TB or less. RHEL4 release notes mention this is a limitation for the RedHat installer. For
SLES10, boot arrays must be 1TB or less.
4.5) Under RHEL4 Update 4 32 bit platform, sometimes X-Window is terminated by system after a long time operation
if system RAM size is 4G or above. Update the correct X-Window graphics driver can solve this problem.
4.6) Cannot supprt SATA optical devices, such as SATA DVD-ROM. Please use PATA optical devices instead.
Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.