[my first reply to you bounced from the list as I sent it "from" CERN 
instead of SLAC]

I just went to try turning off the RAID controller in the BIOS to see if 
that would help but after going through all the options I remembered you 
need to set a jumper to do that. I might just let it wipe out the 
partition table, I'll copy the data I wanted to keep to another disk (the 
one on the RAID controller) and then copy it back after the install.

On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Oleg Sadov wrote:

> Looks like improperly configuration of multipath software-RAID. For
> example, changed or not properly configured drivers, incorrect device
> path or something else.
>
> Simplest way for resolving of this problem -- disconnecting all
> suspicious devices, installing system to something common disk drive
> (IDE, SCSI or SATA)  and then carefully set up your RAID-subsystem for
> current version of system.
>
> Of course, output of sysreport utility may be helpful for such problems
> resolving.
>
> --Oleg
>
> Stephen J. Gowdy wrote:
>> There was nothing there. It did look like something called mpath didn't
>> find any partitions. It ran after dmraid. I wonder if it is getting
>> confused due there being a RAID controller on the machine? I just submited
>> the same question to rhel5-users mailing list. I'll see if there are any
>> other answers there.
>>
>> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007, Oleg Sadov wrote:
>>
>>> Stephen J. Gowdy wrote:
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>    	Sorry for the off topic question but thought I might get an answer
>>>> quicker here. I'm trying to install RHEL5 on a machine (currently running
>>>> RHEL3) it has trouble reading the partition table somehow. I can read it
>>>> fine with fdisk after pushing ALT-F2 to get the shell up. Is there a limit
>>>> in the number of partitions anaconda understands? Here is the partition
>>>> table;
>>>
>>> Standard limit for PC-like partition table -- 16 partitions (with
>>> extended part-n).
>>>
>>> May be you can find some useful messages at ALT-F3 or ALT-F4?
>>>
>>> --Oleg
>>>
>>>> Disk /dev/hde: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
>>>> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
>>>> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>>>>
>>>>       Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
>>>> /dev/hde1   *         1        33    265041   83  Linux
>>>> /dev/hde2            34      4865  38813040    5  Extended
>>>> /dev/hde5          1107      4865  30194136   83  Linux
>>>> /dev/hde6           845      1106   2104515   83  Linux
>>>> /dev/hde7            34       582   4409779+  83  Linux
>>>> /dev/hde8           583       713   1052226   83  Linux
>>>> /dev/hde9           714       844   1052226   82  Linux swap
>>>>
>>>> Originally it was out of order but I fixed that and it still has the
>>>> problem. The message starts "partition table on device hda was unreadable"
>>>> (this device is hda during the installation), it wants you to create a new
>>>> partition table. I'd rather not as I want to keep some partitions after
>>>> the reinstall.
>>>>    	Any ideas?
>>>>
>>>>    						regards,
>>>>
>>>>    						Stephen.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>     /------------------------------------+-------------------------\
>>>> |Stephen J. Gowdy, SLAC               | CERN     Office: 32-2-A22|
>>>> |http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~gowdy/ | CH-1211 Geneva 23        |
>>>> |http://calendar.yahoo.com/gowdy      | Switzerland              |
>>>> |EMail: [log in to unmask]       | Tel: +41 22 767 5840     |
>>>>     \------------------------------------+-------------------------/
>>>
>>
>> --
>>    /------------------------------------+-------------------------\
>> |Stephen J. Gowdy, SLAC               | CERN     Office: 32-2-A22|
>> |http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~gowdy/ | CH-1211 Geneva 23        |
>> |http://calendar.yahoo.com/gowdy      | Switzerland              |
>> |EMail: [log in to unmask]       | Tel: +41 22 767 5840     |
>>    \------------------------------------+-------------------------/
>

--
   /------------------------------------+-------------------------\
|Stephen J. Gowdy, SLAC               | CERN     Office: 32-2-A22|
|http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~gowdy/ | CH-1211 Geneva 23        |
|http://calendar.yahoo.com/gowdy      | Switzerland              |
|EMail: [log in to unmask]       | Tel: +41 22 767 5840     |
   \------------------------------------+-------------------------/