dmraid fakeraid unequal volumes
 

ok i'm sure this has been asked a few times before but i cant seem to find it.

I recently moved to ubuntu from windows and have a nvidia fakeraid volume made up of 2 500GB disks and one 1000GB.

In windows the drivers made this very easy but in Linux with dmraid it only shows up as 1500GB which meens that an error comes up when I try to mount the partition.

I found a few people online saying that it is possible to get it to mount and be used.

This drive has almost all my data on it so re partitioning isn't really an option, it will have to stay as NTFS.

thanks in advance

If you have two unequal volumes, then I presume you have your disks setup as JBOD. I don't know if your version of dmraid supports JBOD; it seems to have been a recent patch, see http://www.linux-archive.org/device-...aid-sil-c.html

You might want to post the output of dmraid, fstab etc. and specify the version of ubuntu; it's possible that I'm wrong about the above and that the problem is simpler than that...

thanks for replying :)

dmraid version: 1.0.0.rc15 (2008-09-17) shared
dmraid library version: 1.0.0.rc15 (2008.09.17)
device-mapper version: 4.15.0


ubuntu 9.10


kernel: 2.6.31-16-generic


output of fdisk -l
root@jacek-desktop:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xab15f7eb

Disk /dev/sda doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2850f24c

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2e181549

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 59321 476495901 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 59322 60801 11888100 5 Extended
/dev/sdc5 59322 60801 11888068+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdd: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb41a3d87

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 243197 1953478878+ 7 HPFS/NTFS



output of dmraid -ay
root@jacek-desktop:~# dmraid -ay
RAID set "nvidia_afeahbbe" already active
RAID set "nvidia_jbcaafci" already active
ERROR: dos: partition address past end of RAID device
RAID set "nvidia_jbcaafci1" already active
RAID set "nvidia_jbcaafci5" already active


and dmraid -r
root@jacek-desktop:~# dmraid -r
/dev/sdd: nvidia, "nvidia_afeahbbe", linear, ok, 1953525166 sectors, data@ 0
/dev/sdc: nvidia, "nvidia_jbcaafci", linear, ok, 976773166 sectors, data@ 0
/dev/sdb: nvidia, "nvidia_afeahbbe", linear, ok, 976773166 sectors, data@ 0
/dev/sda: nvidia, "nvidia_afeahbbe", linear, ok, 976773166 sectors, data@ 0



I did come across the update for dmraid you mentioned... perhaps I should update to the latest dmraid

Hmm,
You've got 4 disks /dev/sd{a,b,c,d}, the first 3 are 500G disks and sdd is the 1T.

There are two distinct dmraid signatures nvidia_jbcaafci and nvidia_afeahbbe, suggesting that you setup your RAID more than once in Windows or Linux, or that you have two RAID arrays setup. Looks like you want to use nvidia_afeahbbe, containing sda, sdb and sdd.

sda and sdb are the two 500s in the array, sdc is the boot disk, but sdd has an inconsistent partition table which is odd; it has more cylinders in the partition (243197) than it has on the disk (121601). That *might* be normal given how Windows set this thing up; I'm not sure.

If you look in /dev/mapper, are there any devices like nvidia_afeahbbe1 (note the numeral) in it?

If there are, can you
If that doesn't work, it might be helpful to know..
Which version of Windows did you use and how, exactly did you make the RAID device? I realize the thing has drivers, but do you remember how you did it or have access to "Disk Management" under Windows; ie can you still boot Windows and interrogate it?

I found that too when I first started trying to get this to work... i think its something along the lines of the nvidia driver (for windows only) makes the disk show up as 2TB, whereas here dmraid only sees it as 1.5TB

The following are in /dev/mapper
control nvidia_afeahbbe nvidia_jbcaafci nvidia_jbcaafci1 nvidia_jbcaafci5

I used 7 to install the driver but the actuall array was created using nvidia's raid tool in the BIOS.

also the other nvidia_ thing is probably a remnant from before i expanded the array (added the 1TB disk)

here is the output from the mount commond you speccified
jacek@jacek-desktop:~$ sudo mount -t ntfs-3g -o ro /dev/mapper/nvidia_afeahbbe1 /media/media
ntfs-3g: Failed to access volume '/dev/mapper/nvidia_afeahbbe1': No such file or directory

might be worth mentioning that System -> admin > disk utillity does see the disk as 2TB unallocated space

oh and I don't have windows any more, i was hoping not to have to install it again

OK you don't have ntfs-3g, just use the kernel ntfs driver for now; drop the "-3g"

and also try "5" instead of "1"

mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/mapper/nvidia_afeahbbe5 /media/media

BTW, you still have your Windows partition at /sdd1, so what does

mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/sdd1 /mnt/somewhere

show?

jacek@jacek-desktop:~$ sudo mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/mapper/nvidia_afeahbbe5 /media/media
ntfs-3g: Failed to access volume '/dev/mapper/nvidia_afeahbbe5': No such file or directory

ntfs-3g 2009.4.4 external FUSE 27 - Third Generation NTFS Driver

Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Yura Pakhuchiy
Copyright (C) 2006-2009 Szabolcs Szakacsits
Copyright (C) 2007-2009 Jean-Pierre Andre
Copyright (C) 2009 Erik Larsson

Usage: ntfs-3g [-o option[,...]] <device|image_file> <mount_point>

Options: ro (read-only mount), remove_hiberfile, uid=, gid=,
umask=, fmask=, dmask=, streams_interface=, syncio.
Please see the details in the manual (type: man ntfs-3g).

Example: ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows

Ntfs-3g news, support and information: http://ntfs-3g.org


jacek@jacek-desktop:~$ sudo mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/sdd1 /media/media
ntfs-3g: Failed to access volume '/dev/sdd1': No such file or directory

ntfs-3g 2009.4.4 external FUSE 27 - Third Generation NTFS Driver

Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Yura Pakhuchiy
Copyright (C) 2006-2009 Szabolcs Szakacsits
Copyright (C) 2007-2009 Jean-Pierre Andre
Copyright (C) 2009 Erik Larsson

Usage: ntfs-3g [-o option[,...]] <device|image_file> <mount_point>

Options: ro (read-only mount), remove_hiberfile, uid=, gid=,
umask=, fmask=, dmask=, streams_interface=, syncio.
Please see the details in the manual (type: man ntfs-3g).

Example: ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows

Ntfs-3g news, support and information: http://ntfs-3g.org


ls /dev/mapper
jacek@jacek-desktop:~$ ls /dev/mapper
control nvidia_afeahbbe nvidia_jbcaafci nvidia_jbcaafci1 nvidia_jbcaafci5


that seems a little odd to me :s

Odd indeed; seems like ntfs-3g is incorporated as ntfs in the latest Ubuntu - I did not know that - and the error message fooled me into thinking the "file not found" was ntfs-3g. Hmm.

Well, dmraid completely aside, it's very odd that fdisk reports the presence of sdd1 as an NTFS partition but that ntfs-3g refuses to see it. There's something else going on here but I'm not sure what it is.

I'll have to think about that/google it to see if I can come up with any other suggestions. :(

thank you soo much i have spent hours trying to work this out...

I have a bit of free time tonight so ill try with the latest dmraid version just to see if it makes any difference at all.

hi again, sorry if i am dragging up an old topic, but i just did some googleing on this problem (which still isnt fixed) and this topic came up on the first page.

Does anyone have any ideas, i tried upgrading to dmraid RC16 as that has some bug fixes related to JBOD, but it seems to be incompatible with almost everything. As i wasnt even sure if the upgrade would fix the problem i gave up on that

anyone at all, i really miss all my files :(...

thanks in advance :)

thanks for the help

... what ?

Sorry, I don't know why fdisk shows an ntfs partition on sdd1 while ntfs-3g doesn't. Unless the partition isn't really an ntfs partition but you just used fdisk to change the type! :) Maybe the ntfs-3g.org forum could help you; I've asked them a question directly with good results.

Try running "sudo /sbin/fdisk -l <device>" for each of the devices involved, hd, partitions & dm devices. It often will produce valuable information.

He/she did that, I think, see post #3