PROBLEM: booting from 3w-9000 RAID array

[Filipe Maia]

1. Cannot boot from /dev/sda2 and /dev/sda3 with 3w-9xxx driver from 2.6  
kernel series. Booting from /dev/sda1 looks to work.

2. I have a 3w-9000 and the following partitions:

/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda2 on / type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda3 on /mnt/debian type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda4 on /homes/hirst/dsk1 type ext3 (rw,noatime,data=writeback)
/dev/sdb1 on /homes/hirst/dsk2 type ext3 (rw,noatime,data=writeback)

On WhiteBox Linux 3.0. Bootloader is grub (GNU GRUB 0.93) installed in  
/dev/sda.
The 2.4 drivers that 3ware provides work fine (both with custom and pre  
compiled redhat kernels).
But if i use a 2.6 kernel with a builtin driver i get a:

Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,2)

The strange thing is that if i use sda1 as root (801) it's able to mount  
root fs (but obviously fails,
because it doesn't find init). If i try the same using the driver as  
module and initrd the error is in:
pivot_root: no such file or directory.

I tried both stock kernel from kernel.org (2.6.9) and debian  
2.6.8-1smp(precompiled with module driver).

It looks like the driver recognizes the disks during boot (i get some  
output about 3w-9xxx founding sda and sdb),
but not the partitions inside the drives (i don't get any output about the  
sda1, sda2, etc...).

3. Keywords - 2.6, boot, 3w-9xxx
4. Kernel version - 2.6.9 and 2.6.8-1smp from debian

5. Hardware:
Processors	1	
Model	Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz	
Chip MHz	2800.16 MHz	
Cache Size	512 KB	
System Bogomips	5583.66	
PCI Devices	0000:00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801CA Ultra ATA  
Storage Controller
0000:00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801CA/CAM SMBus Controller
0000:01:04.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage XL
0000:02:1c.0 PIC: Intel Corp. 82870P2 P64H2 I/OxAPIC
0000:02:1e.0 PIC: Intel Corp. 82870P2 P64H2 I/OxAPIC
0000:03:01.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82541EI Gigabit Ethernet  
Controller
0000:03:02.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82541EI Gigabit Ethernet  
Controller
0000:04:01.0 RAID bus controller: 3ware Inc 3ware ATA-RAID
0000:04:02.0 RAID bus controller: 3ware Inc 3ware ATA-RAID
	
IDE Devices	none	
SCSI Devices
3ware Logical Disk 00 (Direct-Access)
3ware Logical Disk 00 (Direct-Access)

more /proc/scsi/scsi

Attached devices:
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
  Vendor: 3ware    Model: Logical Disk 00  Rev: 1.00
  Type:   Direct-Access                    ANSI SCSI revision: ffffffff
Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
  Vendor: 3ware    Model: Logical Disk 00  Rev: 1.00
  Type:   Direct-Access                    ANSI SCSI revision: ffffffff

lspci -vvv attached

--
All generalizations are false, including this one.
         -- Mark Twain

Attachment: pci
Description: Binary data