Problems installing onto DAC960 (Mylex Acceleraid250)

[Michael Alexander]

Hello,
(Please excuse the cross post, I'm not sure if this is more a scsi or
general hardware question, it can go eitherway)

  I had asked this question in freebsd-questions, but haven't been able to
receive a decent answer.  A couple times I've gotten the answer that FreeBSD
may not install onto RAID at all, I can't believe that is correct.  And that
RAID is just for user data, not the OS.  Also working in the Netware world,
I know that RAID is important for the entire server, especially the OS.

  I am trying to install FreeBSD4.9 (or 5.1 even) on a system that uses a
Mylex Acceleraid250 (DAC960 driver) without success.  The install CD hangs
when it attempts to spin up the drives on the raid, waiting 15 seconds for
scsi devices to settle is the last message on the screen.  I found that
there is a similar problem with RH9, but that they have a work around, which
involves recompiling the kernel and remaking the installation CDs.  I have
the instructions for RH9, but I was hoping to be able to use FreeBSD.  If I
can't get it installed though, I will have to go to RedHat instead.
http://www.techonthenet.com/linux/rh9_update.htm is the instructions, it is
just a simple changing of two kernel options.  Is this possibly the same
reason that I cannot install FreeBSD?  The two kernel options to be changed
are the following:


    # CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC is not set
    # CONFIG_X86_UP_IOAPIC is not set

Change them to:

    CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC=y
    CONFIG_X86_UP_IOAPIC=y

If so, are there instructions like the RH ones?  I have never used FreeBSD
before, I have used RH7 and 8.  Since RH is not really offering itself free
anymore, I thought I would give FreeBSD a try, and it also appears that
FreeBSD is abit more current in its packages than RH has been.  I do have
another machine I can install onto to make the changes.  Since this system
is going to be a mail server for the company, we want to be able use RAID
for the entire system including boot.  The system is fully up to date on
bios and firmware for both MB and raid card.

Thank you,
Mike