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Using Kickstart (anaconda) on Dell with multiple internal disks

A number of our machines have multiple VDs created (i.e. 2 x 75GB for OS, 2 x 146GB for application).

After building an R910 with multiple VDs I discovered that /boot and <SWAP> were on the 75GB device, and the OS was on the 146GB device.  I wanted everything on the 75GB.

<excerpt from kickstart profile>

# STORAGE CONFIGURATION
zerombr yes
clearpart --all --initlabel
bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sda,sdb --append="nousbstorage"
part /boot --fstype ext4 --size=512 --asprimary --onbiosdisk=81
part pv.1 --size=1 --grow --onbiosdisk=81
volgroup VolGroup00 pv.1
logvol swap --fstype swap --name=LogVol00 --vgname=VolGroup00 --recommended
logvol / --fstype ext4 --fsoptions=noatime --name=LogVol01 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=1024 --grow
#logvol / --fstype ext4 --fsoptions=noatime --name=LogVol01 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=10240
</excerpt>

I had found numerous recommendations to deal with this situation.

  • nousbstorage - doesn't really seem to do anything, but there may be background stuff going on that I do not see/recognize
  • onbiosdisk - this option is pay-dirt.  However, most of the documentation I found did not explain what the option was doing or how to configure it.
- onbiosdisk -
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/w/wiki/linux-installer-magic.aspx
As you can see from my own example, I did not get as complex as the Dell provided example.

I would like to include is how I was able to determine that Interrupt value (0x81).

Unfortunately you have to start a Kickstart that is ultimately doomed to fail to get the view (above).  Once the Kickstart has proceeded far enough that you are able to hit ALT-F2, do so.  Then run the find command shown in the image.  If you cd to that directory and do an ls -l it will provide a better identifier of which edd device is linked to.  (I may try to grab another screenshot showing that association.)
# find /dev/disk/by-id/
# fdisk -l | grep Disk


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