[BozemanLUG] Formatting GPT drives

[Robert Potter]

My Server project just keeps kicking the crap out of me.  I am  now able to
use 2TB drives (long story, not relevant for now).  so I thought I was good
to go.

I ordered some 2TB Seagate Constellation ES drives and thought I would
install two drives per server as RAID 1.  I was going super simple and
configuring 16GB Swap file and the rest was OS & Data using software RAID (I
know, I know, please see P.S. below).  The problem I keep having is that the
official 10.04 Ubuntu Advanced Server instructions no longer work.  they
work just fine for smaller drives, but not for 2TB drives.  Seems that the
OS wizard is auto selecting GPT formatting.  As a result, GRUB is unable to
install.  I thought I was going to be able to change the Drive's in such a
way as to force an MBR format but it does not look like it.

I have never in my life done a GPT install, am a bit confused and frustrated
by it.  I am seeing no real information on the web or from Ubuntu, but am
being told this is the future and MBR systems are being done away with so
get used to it.  I am also seeing how this has been an issue for a fair
amount of users too.

I am starting to think I have to use some third party partitioning software
to get the drive marked in such as way that the Ubuntu installer knows what
to do with them.  I was also hoping to have everything RAID 1 so that if I
had a drive failure we would "in theory" be good to go.  The system would
supposedly be able to boot in a degraded RAID state.  I am now questioning
if GPT partitioning can even allow that since it looks like you have to fake
the system into thinking you have an MBR space.

Does anyone know how to do a system install using GPT formatting? Can I have
a RAID1 Grub install?

-Rob Potter
rpotter at zoncko.com

P.S. - I know that a RAID 1 SWAP partition is considered unnecessary and
hard on the system.  The beliefe is that if a drive fails and the system has
to come back up, missing swap data could cause a problem.  Also, this is
just a storage server with a quad core processor and 4 gigs of RAM to start.
 I am betting the performance impact is minimal with the system
capabilities.  Also, hardware RAID is still not an option.
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