ML110G6 unreliable booting from SW RAID in Ubuntu

[bsluijk]

I am trying to set up an ML110 G6 server with Ubuntu using software RAID, but I run into unreliable booting: a "quiet" boot almost never makes it, a boot in recovery mode (with lots of diagnostic output to the console) does boot most of the times. The difference seems to be due to the console output which slows down the boot sequence a little. If boot fails it is due to a "degraded RAID".

I tried adding a "Rootdelay" up to 100 seconds, and although this does result in a 100 second wait in the boot sequence it does not solve the issue.

Any suggestions how to fix this, or where to look for solutions?

Following are the contents from menu.lst:
===============================================
title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-17-server (rootdelay=10)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.31-17-server rootdelay=10 root=/dev/md1 ro quiet splash
server root=/dev/md1 ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-17-server
quiet

title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-17-server (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.31-17-server root=/dev/md1 ro single
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-17-server
===============================================

[bsluijk]

Re-posting GRUB menu.lst since this got mangled while posting. First item does NOT boot reliably, second one is more reliable (but not 100%):
===============================================
title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-17-server (rootdelay=10)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.31-17-server rootdelay=10 root=/dev/md1 ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-17-server
quiet

title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-17-server (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.31-17-server root=/dev/md1 ro single
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-17-server
===============================================

[bsluijk]

Problem was associated with erroneous information on the disks.

Running a "full erase" from the HP recovery disk, follwed by a clean install solved the issue