On Wednesday October 7 2015 1:51 pm, Larry Linder wrote:
> On Tuesday October 6 2015 11:07 am, Larry Linder wrote:
> > First step was to remove the 5th disk from the system.  I was mounted as
> > /sde1 After this is complete the install finished with out a problem.
> >
> > A long time ago we ran into this problem and it had to do with the number
> > of devices.
> > We used to run 32 SCSI drives on a server using two 16 device cards and
> > when the high speed serial stuff came out we were suddenly limited to 6
> > devices. - This from memory.
> >
> > The 5 SATA drives + DVD as a SATA drive is 6  Mother board is labeled 0 
> > -> 5 all ports are used.  We unplugged cable from 5th disk and the
> > install went normally.
> > It accepts sda1 - sda12, sdb1, sdc1, sdd1 and the DVD drive in 5th slot.
> >
> > Larry Linder
> >
> > On Monday October 5 2015 7:37 pm, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> > > First step is "stop partitioning and getting cutesy with your layout at
> > > install time." Adding extra disks and software configs, especially the
> > > /mysql that may conflict with SELinux, is begging for trouble at
> > > install time. See if you can bring it alive with a bare installation,
> > > on sda only.
> > >
> > > Nico Kadel-Garcia
> > > Email: [log in to unmask]
> > > Sent from iPhone
> > >
> > > > On Oct 5, 2015, at 12:53, Larry Linder
> > > > <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Dear Sir:
> > > >
> > > > We are building a new server and decided to use SL 6.7
> > > > The system is a quad core AMD with 32 G Ram and 5 T bytes of disk
> > > > space. The OS is installed on the sda1 - 10
> > > > /engr is installed on sdb1
> > > > /mysql is install on sdc1
> > > > /backup01 is on sdd1
> > > > /backup02 is on sde1
> > > >
> > > > The install progresses normally till it get to sde1
> > > >    it appears to finish the format correctly and
> > > >    when it come time to mount the device we get the following:
> > > >
> > > > "An ERROR Occurred Mounting /dev/sde1  /backup02 mount failed
> > > > (9,none) This is a fatal error and install cannot continue."
> > > >
> > > > Disk and cable have been swapped,  Port has been swapped.  Problem
> > > > does not follow port or hardware.
> > > > The first time it occurred Saturday we were able to do a walk back
> > > > but were not able to save anything as network had not been
> > > > configured, but we could do a walk back but couldn't  file a bug
> > > > report.
> > > > The thing we noticed is that the second argument of all functions was
> > > > empty. Meaning a void !!! or a null string ??
> > > >
> > > > Second time with a known good disk for sde and another port on mother
> > > > board the error occurred again.
> > > >
> > > > The third time with new disk sde, cable, port it gave the same error
> > > > message but with Network set up so we could capture the problem. 
> > > > This time we were not able to do a walk back.  The only option was to
> > > > reboot and we are back to square 1.
> > > >
> > > > Any Ideas would be appreciated.
> > > >
> > > > Thank You
> > > > Larry Linder
>
> What we have tried.
> The downloaded DVD was error checked before we began this exercise so we
> are certain that the DVD set is good.
>
> The 5th. disk was connected to different port on mother board and if we
> limit the number of disks to 4 + DVD drive it works and install completes.
> We are convinced the Hardware suite is VALID.  The other output ports were
> vacated when removing a disk.
>
> This try we selected default on SL 6.7 to automatically set it up and use
> LVM to assign disk.   It proceeded normally and when it gets to sde1 we get
> an error message that it cannot format disk.   This disk will work as sdb
> sdc sdd.
> The walk back did not give a clue except that the second argument to
> function is null. or null string as in other tries.
>
> When in manual disk setup  there at least it formats sde but will not mount
> it.  Same walk back info but the error is now it cannot mount disk.
>
> Next we will try 5.11 on this hardware and see if it works.
> another test is to install BSD.  Other people who use BSD report that they
> have mounted 99 devices with out a problem.
>
> This box is not connected to our network as it is used all day.  Will
> connect it Saturday and see if we can file a bug report.
>
> Larry Linder

SL 5.9
Install of SL 5.9 revealed some more information.
Install and disk setup using 5 disks.
Disks have been re ordered as plugged into mother board.
All disks are WD Black 1 T byte.   with identical production numbers, except 
for SN.  (New ).

Installer lists fdisks as:
hd1		5th disk                 not the same disk but 1 of 5 in disk pack.                 
sda		second disk
sdb		third disk
sdc		forth disk
sdd		fifth disk.

Install fails because it can't write  /boot to GPT partitioning.  SL5 does not 
understand this but relies on Master Boot Record. 

It appears that at least from our experiments SL cannot handle more than 4 
hard disks and this goes back to at least 5.9.   SL 6.7 identifies the disks 
as all sda - sde but fails to mount 5th disk.

Any good ideas as to where this thing went wrong or how to fix problem.
LVM still has the same problem when dealing with so many devices.

It looks like we will try BSD and some other Linux editions to see if they 
have these limitations.   My guess is that upstream vendor made the free 
RHT "criple ware" deliberately.   If you could get the functions source code 
you would know in a few minutes.
We have seen some mother boards with 12 sd ports.   

Larry Linder