New Install, Old Hardware RAID5

scambro · 02-03-2009, 04:48 PM

Hi all,

I'm using Ubuntu 8.10, just installed, with a Promise SuperTrak EX8350. I built one new RAID5 (4 x 1.5 TB GPT), and now I'm trying to mount my previously existing RAID5 (4 x 500 GB NTFS), which has existing data that needs to be preserved.

When I do fdisk -l, for the RAID that I'm missing I see:

Code:

Disk /dev/sdb: 1499.9 GB, 1499999895552 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182364 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf538398a

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1      182364  1464838798+  42  SFS

When I try to mount the drive, I get this:

Code:

/# mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb1 /home/raid
Failed to read last sector (2929677596): Invalid argument
HINTS: Either the volume is a RAID/LDM but it wasn't setup yet,
   or it was not setup correctly (e.g. by not using mdadm --build ...),
   or a wrong device is tried to be mounted,
   or the partition table is corrupt (partition is smaller than NTFS),
   or the NTFS boot sector is corrupt (NTFS size is not valid).
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.
Maybe you selected the wrong device? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/hda, not /dev/hda1)? Or the other way around?

I read quite a bit about mdadm, but I don't believe that's what I want because this is a HW RAID, not Software based. I tried mdadm anyway, but didn't see anything:

Code:

/# mdadm --assemble --scan
mdadm: No arrays found in config file or automatically

Here's what I get with testdisk /list. SDA is the new one, SDB the other RAID, SDC is the Ubuntu system drive, and SDD is the old XP one, which I can mount and read without issue.

Code:

Disk /dev/sda - 4500 GB / 4191 GiB - CHS 547179 255 63, sector size=512
Disk /dev/sdb - 1499 GB / 1396 GiB - CHS 182364 255 63, sector size=512
Disk /dev/sdc - 320 GB / 298 GiB - CHS 38913 255 63, sector size=512
Disk /dev/sdd - 80 GB / 74 GiB - CHS 9726 255 63, sector size=512

Disk /dev/sda - 4500 GB / 4191 GiB - CHS 547179 255 63
     Partition			Start        End    Size in sectors
 1 P MS Data                       34  200503518  200503485 [primary]
Disk /dev/sdb - 1499 GB / 1396 GiB - CHS 182364 255 63
     Partition			Start        End    Size in sectors
 1 P W2K Dynamic/SFS          0   1  1 182363 254 63 2929677597

At this point, I'm a bit perplexed because if I toss in the WinXP boot drive, I can see the missing RAID and it's data without a problem. Any help is greatly appreciated! Sorry for the cross post, I put this over on ubuntuforums as well. Thanks!

stress_junkie · 02-03-2009, 07:20 PM

If you peruse these posts you will see many problems reported with Ubuntu 8.10. You should try using the previous version of Ubuntu, namely 8.04.

I would first try booting Windows and running chkdsk on the disk with NTFS.

If that didn't fix the problem then I would try mounting the NTFS disk with the ntfs-3g driver.

Code:

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /home/raid

It might be easier to boot Windows, back up the data, boot Ubuntu, create a new RAID structure on the virtual disk, then restore the data. The obvious problem with this idea is that Ubuntu cannot format NTFS, AFAIK.

scambro · 02-03-2009, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stress_junkie

If you peruse these posts you will see many problems reported with Ubuntu 8.10. You should try using the previous version of Ubuntu, namely 8.04.

I would first try booting Windows and running chkdsk on the disk with NTFS.

If that didn't fix the problem then I would try mounting the NTFS disk with the ntfs-3g driver.

Code:

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /home/raid

It might be easier to boot Windows, back up the data, boot Ubuntu, create a new RAID structure on the virtual disk, then restore the data. The obvious problem with this idea is that Ubuntu cannot format NTFS, AFAIK.

I hadn't seen much about the problems with 8.10, I'll look into that now, thank you.

I did try to mount it with the ntfs-3g driver at some point, but still get the same results. I'll give the chkdsk idea a shot tomorrow, otherwise I guess I'm off to buy a spare 1.5 TB drive for backup!

Thanks for the ideas, hopefully I have some sucess tomorrow!

scambro · 02-04-2009, 09:38 AM

I ran chkdsk just now and here's the output:

Code:

C:\>chkdsk t: /r /v
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is One_Five.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
Index verification completed.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
Cleaning up 19 unused index entries from index $SII of file 9.
Cleaning up 19 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 9.
Cleaning up 19 unused security descriptors.
Fixing mirror copy of the security descriptors data stream.
Security descriptor verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...

Right now it's running the file check, which will probably take a day or so. Would the ununsed index entries cause Linux to see my partition or boot table as corrupted? I'm eager for this to finish so I can boot it back up in Linux and see what happens, but it's done 2% in about an hour.

Thanks!

scambro · 02-05-2009, 02:47 PM

Just as an FYI at this point. After running the fixes on the index files it still would not mount in Linux. Looks like my only option is to backup and recreate in Linux.

gregw040 · 02-07-2009, 03:04 AM

What does "blkid" return in the GNU/Linux?