[tlug] New Math

[CL <az.4tlug@example.com>]

Before amusing / depressing / frustrating the Smart Kids with my 
intended switch to total virtualization on my business box, I thought 
I'd do something simple like install a RAID on my torrenting box.  All I 
needed to do was put the six 3Tb disks I'd collected in the case, plug 
in a SATA controller card and install LVM2 and MDADM and add a little 
bit of command line stuff from the Ubuntu How-to website.

What could possibly go wrong?

The motherboard is a circa 2010 Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H + AMD Athlon 
4-core + 8Gb of DDR2 memory that came out of my work machine several 
years ago.  It is in a low-stress environment and just works.  All it 
does is move ones and zeros from the internet to disk and disk to TV.   
It got SATA 3 and USB 3.0 from add-in cards.  This setup has outlived 
two Intel i7 machines that replaced it -- and died within 18 months each 
-- before I finally got the hint and went back to another AMD F1 setup, 
which has been rock solid.  (Damn, I hope I didn't let all the luck out 
with that comment.)

I HAVE:

- a new Samsung 120Gb SSD for the boot disk (SATA 3).

- six new Toshiba 3Tb HDDs (SATA 3)

- a Kuroto Shikou 10-port SATA 3 PCIe controller card (two ports map to 
the mobo "0" and "1" so I have avoided connecting anything to them).

- two handfuls of new "SATA 3" cables.

- O/S is Lubuntu 17.04, but I may upgrade to 17.10 or replace with 
Debian 9 LXDE, but the latter only if absolutely required to get the 
setup I want (the Debian installer disk for LXDE desktop looks like the 
computer equivalent of shoveling up the contents of a horse stall, 
throwing it up against a wall and using what sticks -- and the desktop 
is Ugg Lee).

WHAT I WANT TO DO:

- My intention is to use the SSD as the boot and O/S disk exclusively 
and store everything on a new RAID 5 or RAID 6 assembly using the six 
new HDDs.  The CD/DVD (SATA 1) and SSD are currently connected to the 
mobo, which is SATA 2, as Master and Slave.  I have IDE switched off and 
switched the disk type in BIOS from Native IDE to AHCI, because that is 
what the controller card shows on boot the other disks will be when they 
start.  Mounting the SSD on the "maps to mobo 0" or "maps to mobo 1" 
connector on the controller card leads to a "no boot" condition so I am 
sticking with leaving them connected to the mobo.

Please, let's ignore LVM and MDADM for the nonce and get the machine booted.

PROBLEM I CREATE WHEN I DO THAT:

- It does the whole POST routine, recognizing two disks on the mobo, 
enumerates the six Toshiba disks and reboots with no error message 
shown.  Continuously.

I got into the setup by disconnecting the six HDDs and booting from the 
SSD, I edited the BIOS and booted to desktop.  I then hot-swap connected 
the disks to the card one at a time, causing only minor discomfort to my 
fingers, which got too close to the video card cooling fan a few times.

The six disks were then formatted to gpt / ext 4 with gparted.

Once it is running and all the connections are made, it _seems_ to 
operate normally.  I have not created a RAID, yet.

Any suggestions as to how I can achieve bootup with the HDDs connected?  
I can't find anything else in the setup that looks as though a switch or 
change would lead to a different result ... but I am willing to be 
corrected on that.

--
CL