Hi all. I inherited an ibm server x3400 m2 - it has a fakeraid/motherboard raid setup for a mirrored array (2 x 250GB). I know, fakeraid is the worst. It's an Adaptec HostRaid (so no card, just motherboard) configuration. Anyways, its motherboard failed and now I've got to get data off of it! Normally dmraid handles this sort of thing like a champ, but unfortunately that is not the case this time. On a debian sid 32-bit desktop, here's what happens:

I attach the drives, they are detected (and healthy) and run dmraid -s. It shows:

*** Group superset .ddf1_disks
--> Subset
name : ddf1_DataStore
size : 488019072
stride : 128
type : mirror
status : ok
subsets: 0
devs : 2
spares : 0

Then, when I run dmraid -ay:

RAID set "ddf1_DataStore" was not activated

If I do the same command verbosely, I get:

NOTICE: /dev/sde: ddf1 metadata discovered
NOTICE: /dev/sdd: ddf1 metadata discovered
NOTICE: added /dev/sde to RAID set ".ddf1_disks"
NOTICE: added /dev/sdd to RAID set ".ddf1_disks"
RAID set "ddf1_DataStore" was not activated
INFO: Activating GROUP raid set ".ddf1_disks"

Of course, nothing appears in /dev/mapper.
What do I do? Why is it detecting it as ddf1 and not asr?

Hmm it seems I might need the controller (which is on the dead motherboard).

Does anyone know if I can just buy a generic adaptec PCI card to do this, or do I have to somehow by a motherboard with similar HostRaid?

I'm afraid you probably will need a replacement IBM ServeRaid 8e or 8i controller; I think that's the Adaptec HostRAID controller integrated on your motherboard.

It's likely you will be able to import the drive configuration to the replacement controller at that point... but my working knowledge of the IBM ServeRAID controllers stopped with the 6-series, so I can't tell you for sure.

Worst case, you might need to replace the motherboard -- but I don't imagine that will be cheap.

I guess it all depends on how much you need that data and/or how recent your last backup was...

Good luck!