Fasttrack Promise not recognized: "No RAID disks"

Bug #112402 reported by Steve
12
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
dmraid (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Medium
Phillip Susi

Bug Description

Binary package hint: dmraid

Using a Promise Fasttrack S-150 TX2 (OEM installed on a Dell PowerEdge 400SC), dmraid does not recognize the raid array - it just says "No RAID disks". Sample output:

ubuntu@ubuntu:/$ dmraid -ay -vvv -d
WARN: locking /var/lock/dmraid/.lock
NOTICE: /dev/sda: asr discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: ddf1 discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: hpt37x discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: hpt45x discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: isw discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: jmicron discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: lsi discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: nvidia discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: pdc discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: sil discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: via discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: asr discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: ddf1 discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: hpt37x discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: hpt45x discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: isw discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: jmicron discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: lsi discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: nvidia discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: pdc discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: sil discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: via discovering
No RAID disks
WARN: unlocking /var/lock/dmraid/.lock

ubuntu@ubuntu:/$ dmraid -b
/dev/sda: 312500000 total, "WD-WMAL92264857"
/dev/sdb: 312500000 total, "WD-WMAL92077436"

Others have experienced this problem as well:
http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2006-December/028826.html
http://www.redhat.net/archives/ataraid-list/2006-December/msg00000.html

As I understand it, the only way you can get a redundant /boot partition on this Promise controller is by using dmraid, making this bug highly inconvenient.

Steve (igloocentral)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Was this with Feisty? Someone had similar problems and produced a patch on the ataraid mailing list. I will apply this patch and build you a new package to test.

Changed in dmraid:
assignee: nobody → psusi
status: Unconfirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
Steve (igloocentral) wrote :

THANK YOU! Yes, this was with Feisty. I'm no expert when it comes to applying patches... If you build a new package, will I be able to grab it through the Synaptic GUI?

WOW! This support is better than any paid software I've ever used!

Revision history for this message
Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

I am attaching an updated package with this patch. Download it and install it by running sudo dpkg -i dmraid_1.0.0.rc13-2ubuntu4_i386.deb

Let me know if this fixes it.

Revision history for this message
Steve (igloocentral) wrote :

It seems that didn't fix the problem. Here is the output:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~/Desktop$ sudo dpkg -i dmraid_1.0.0.rc13-2ubuntu4_i386.deb
(Reading database ... 91569 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace dmraid 1.0.0.rc13-2ubuntu3 (using dmraid_1.0.0.rc13-2ubuntu4_i386.deb) ...
 * Shutting down DMRAID devices... [ OK ]
Unpacking replacement dmraid ...
Setting up dmraid (1.0.0.rc13-2ubuntu4) ...
 * Setting up DMRAID devices... [ OK ]
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-generic

ubuntu@ubuntu:~/Desktop$ sudo dmraid -ay -vvv -d
WARN: locking /var/lock/dmraid/.lock
NOTICE: skipping removable device /dev/sdc
NOTICE: /dev/sda: asr discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: ddf1 discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: hpt37x discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: hpt45x discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: isw discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: jmicron discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: lsi discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: nvidia discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: pdc discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: sil discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: via discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: asr discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: ddf1 discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: hpt37x discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: hpt45x discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: isw discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: jmicron discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: lsi discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: nvidia discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: pdc discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: sil discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: via discovering
No RAID disks
WARN: unlocking /var/lock/dmraid/.lock

ubuntu@ubuntu:/dev/mapper$ ls
control

Revision history for this message
Steve (igloocentral) wrote :

The exact version of the card I'm using is:
Promise Technology, Inc. PDC20371 (FastTrak S150 TX2plus) (rev 02)
BIOS version 1.00.20.54 (latest)
on a Dell PowerEdge 400SC Service Tag 3YJGV51

ubuntu@ubuntu:~/$ sudo dmraid -r -D
No RAID disks

Does that mean that not only could dmraid not understand the metadata, but that there was no metadata found at all?

ubuntu@ubuntu:~/$ sudo fdisk -u -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders, total 312500000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 64259 32098+ de Dell Utility Partition
/dev/sda2 * 64260 70702064 35318902+ 7 HPFS/NTFS - msVista
/dev/sda3 70702065 312496379 120897157+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA) - empty FAT32 partition
/dev/sda5 70702128 91168874 10233373+ 7 HPFS/NTFS - winXP
/dev/sda6 91168938 91184939 8001 83 Linux - intended for /boot drive
/dev/sda7 91185003 95393969 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8 95394033 136359719 20482843+ 83 Linux - intended for / (root) drive

sdb is exactly the same. I notice that the first partition starts at block 63. Should it start at 31 to work with dmraid? I read something about how linux raid partitions put their superblock at the end of the data partitions and not at the beginning?

I used partition magic 8.05 to make all these partitions.

here are some links that seemed relevant - although I don't really understand a number of them...
http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Hardware/Promise_FastTrack_PDC20378_PATA_or_RAID
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/debian-linux-help/12741-problem-installing-promise-fasttrak-s150-sx4-2-4-2-6-7-a.html
http://humandoing.net/past/2006/3/19/raid_on_linux_ubuntu_510/
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=98624
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/74329
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=41912
http://forum.linux-sevenler.org/index.php?topic=1097.0;prev_next=prev

I'm so confused!!

Revision history for this message
Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Please run dmraid -rD and take the 3 files it generates ( .dat, .offset, .size ) and attach them to this bug report as a .tar.bz2. I'll forward the data upstream for them to analyze.

Revision history for this message
Steve (igloocentral) wrote :

when i run that command i just get the usual "No RAID disks" and no files created.

Do you think it might be a problem with the sata_promise driver? I notice that they have been working on the way this driver works with my particular card (my card has both the sata and pata interfaces) and there are new versions of the driver available. How would I go about trying one of these new versions with Feisty?

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ide/16957/

Thanks again!

Revision history for this message
Steve (igloocentral) wrote :

I found the metadata on the last sector of the disk, but I don't know how to decode it and figure out whether it matches the format that dmraid is expecting for pdc...

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo cfdisk -Ps /dev/sda
Partition Table for /dev/sda

               First Last
 # Type Sector Sector Offset Length Filesystem Type (ID) Flag
-- ------- ----------- ----------- ------ ----------- -------------------- ----
 1 Primary 0 64259 63 64260 Dell Utility (DE) None
 2 Primary 64260 70702064 0 70637805 HPFS/NTFS (07) Boot
 3 Primary 70702065 312496379 0 241794315 W95 Ext'd (LBA) (0F) None
 5 Logical 70702065 91168874 63 20466810 HPFS/NTFS (07) None
 6 Logical 91168875 91184939 63 16065 Linux (83) None
 7 Logical 91184940 95393969 63 4209030 Linux swap / So (82) None
 8 Logical 95393970 136359719 63 40965750 Linux (83) None
   Logical 136359720 312496379 0 176136660 Free Space None

ubuntu@ubuntu:~/$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=myfile skip=312496379
3621+0 records in
3621+0 records out
1853952 bytes (1.9 MB) copied, 0.108353 seconds, 17.1 MB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/$ cat myfile | hexdump -C > sector.txt

Revision history for this message
Steve (igloocentral) wrote :

Here is perhaps a better dump since the start of the dump (and hence hex numbering) starts with "Promise Technology, Inc."

I don't know whether this location matches up with one of the expected config offsets in pdc.h

ubuntu@ubuntu:~/$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=myfile skip=312499089
911+0 records in
911+0 records out
466432 bytes (466 kB) copied, 0.00416949 seconds, 112 MB/s

Revision history for this message
Steve (igloocentral) wrote : Phillip: new offset of 911?

Phillip, I think you should have everything you need now. The way I calculate it, there is a new offset of 911:

Since the dd command produced 466432 bytes...
466432 divided by the sector size of 512bytes/sector is equal to 911 sectors from the end of the disk.

Is that correct? If so, can you put together another patch file for me to try?

Thanks!

Revision history for this message
Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Excellent work, yes... I computed 911 as well and added it to the list of offsets to check. Try this package.

Revision history for this message
Steve (igloocentral) wrote :
Download full text (3.9 KiB)

looking good! when I run ubiquity, it lists the /dev/mapper partitions in the "Prepare disk space" > "Manual" > "Prepare Partitions" menu.

Can you leave this thread open a little longer? I will do a "Solution" post for others with new offsets. Is there a command you can run to scan the last 2000 sectors of your hard disk for the string "Promise Technology, Inc." ?

I did a post on the ataraid-list regarding this problem. Would you like to post the solution?

Thanks for the help! The damned thing actually works!!!

ubuntu@ubuntu:~/$ sudo dmraid -ay -vvvv -dddd -f pdc
NOTICE: checking format identifier pdc
NOTICE: creating directory /var/lock/dmraid
WARN: locking /var/lock/dmraid/.lock
NOTICE: skipping removable device /dev/sdc
NOTICE: /dev/sda: pdc discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sda: pdc metadata discovered
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: pdc discovering
NOTICE: /dev/sdb: pdc metadata discovered
DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_bhifjacba
DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_bhifjacba
DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_bhifjacba
DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_bhifjacba
NOTICE: added /dev/sda to RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba"
DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_bhifjacba
DEBUG: _find_set: found pdc_bhifjacba
DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_bhifjacba
DEBUG: _find_set: found pdc_bhifjacba
NOTICE: added /dev/sdb to RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba"
DEBUG: checking pdc device "/dev/sda"
DEBUG: checking pdc device "/dev/sdb"
DEBUG: set status of set "pdc_bhifjacba" to 16
DEBUG: checking pdc device "/dev/sda"
DEBUG: checking pdc device "/dev/sdb"
DEBUG: set status of set "pdc_bhifjacba" to 16
RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba" already active
INFO: Activating mirror RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba"
NOTICE: discovering partitions on "pdc_bhifjacba"
NOTICE: /dev/.static/dev/mapper/pdc_bhifjacba: dos discovering
NOTICE: /dev/.static/dev/mapper/pdc_bhifjacba: dos metadata discovered
DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_bhifjacba1
DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_bhifjacba1
DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_bhifjacba2
DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_bhifjacba2
DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_bhifjacba5
DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_bhifjacba5
DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_bhifjacba6
DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_bhifjacba6
DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_bhifjacba7
DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_bhifjacba7
DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_bhifjacba8
DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_bhifjacba8
NOTICE: created partitioned RAID set(s) for /dev/.static/dev/mapper/pdc_bhifjacba
RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba1" already active
INFO: Activating partition RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba1"
RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba2" already active
INFO: Activating partition RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba2"
RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba5" already active
INFO: Activating partition RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba5"
RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba6" already active
INFO: Activating partition RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba6"
RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba7" already active
INFO: Activating partition RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba7"
RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba8" already active
INFO: Activating partition RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba8"
WARN: unlocking /var/lock/dmraid/.lock
DEBUG: freeing devices of RAID set "pdc_bhifjacba"
DEBUG: freeing device "pdc_bhifjacba", path "/dev/sda"
DEBUG: freeing device "pdc_bhifjacba", path...

Read more...

Revision history for this message
Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Attaching debdiff and requesting sponsor upload to gutsy.

Phillip Susi (psusi)
Changed in dmraid:
status: Needs Info → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Steve (igloocentral) wrote : [solution] dmraid reports "No RAID disks."
Download full text (3.9 KiB)

If the command "dmraid -r" just returns "No RAID disks.", here is what you should do.

1. Run the comand "dmraid -ay -vvv -d". If errors show up here, that probably indicates that other problems with your disk exist.

2. Run the command "dmraid -b" and make sure that dmraid can see your block devices.

3. Run the command "dmraid -rD" and look for the three output files: ( .dat, .offset, .size ). If it generates these files, pack them up, post them and ask for help. Use the command "tar jcvf yourfilename.tar.bz2 *.{dat,size,offset}"

IF THE ABOVE COMMAND DOESN'T GENERATE ANY FILES, THE REST OF THIS SOLUTION IS FOR YOU.

Run the command "fdisk -u -l /dev/sda" (if sda is not your disk, change it) You'll get something like this:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders, total 312500000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Subtract 2000 from the number of total sectors. For example,
312500000 minus 2000 = 312498000

Run the command "dd if=/dev/sda of=outputfile skip=312498000" (changing sda and skip= to your values) Pack up the outputfile using the tar command above, post it and ask for help. ALSO include the output from the fdisk command above. You're done!

ADVANCED SOLUTION

If you'd rather not wait for help in the forums, you can actually solve this yourself, but it is quite a bit more work. I'm going to explain whats happening here and what you need to do but from that point its up to you.

fakeRAID metadata is stored somewhere close to the end of the harddrive, and is used by dmraid to figure out what your raid setup is. Sometimes dmraid has trouble finding or understanding the metadata and that's what is happening to you. So the dd command takes a dump of the last 2000 sectors of your harddrive so that the metadata can be manually located. Once found, the location (or "offset") is added to dmraid and a new version of the dmraid package is generated.

If you want to find the metadata yourself, you're first going to need to know what you're looking for. If you have a promise controller like I do, you're going to be looking for "Promise Technology, Inc.". However, if your fakeRAID is from another vendor then you're going to need to look through the dmraid source code to see what your manufacturer's header looks like. The metadata layouts can be found in the lib/format/ataraid directory of the source code bundle:
http://people.redhat.com/~heinzm/sw/dmraid/src/

Next you're going to need to get a readable dump of the end of your hard drive and start looking for the metadata header. Running the command "dd if=/dev/sda of=outputfile skip=312498000 | hexdump -C > outputfile.txt" (substituting your values) will give you a file that you can manually browse through and eyeball for your header.

Once you've found your header, you're going to have to figure out exactly which sector it is located on. The way I did this was just by manually changing the skip= parameter, increasing and decreasing it until the start of the dump lined up exactly with the start of the header.

Each time you run the dd command it will tell you how many bytes were generated. If your dd output has the metadata header li...

Read more...

Revision history for this message
Tormod Volden (tormodvolden) wrote :

Steve, thanks for a very good how-to. Would you mind adding it to the wiki, maybe on a new FakeRaidDebug page? That's a better place than here in this bug report, where it easily will be lost and forgot.

Revision history for this message
Steve (igloocentral) wrote :

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidDebug

Now if my Xsession would start working! It WAS working until I installed a bunch of apps with Automatix. Ug.

Revision history for this message
Luke Yelavich (themuso) wrote :

Thanks for your work.
Please mark as fix released once the package has successfully built.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Format: 1.7
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 10:32:31 -0400
Source: dmraid
Binary: dmraid-udeb dmraid
Architecture: source
Version: 1.0.0.rc13-2ubuntu4
Distribution: gutsy
Urgency: low
Maintainer: Ubuntu MOTU Developers <email address hidden>
Changed-By: Phillip Susi <email address hidden>
Description:
 dmraid - Device-Mapper Software RAID support tool
 dmraid-udeb - Device-Mapper Software RAID support tool
Changes:
 dmraid (1.0.0.rc13-2ubuntu4) gutsy; urgency=low
 .
   * Added some new metadata offsets to pdc.h: Ubuntu #112402
Files:
 87b0f17ac04663572a394a3d194b3fa9 872 admin optional dmraid_1.0.0.rc13-2ubuntu4.dsc
 80c87e7ecf62794a1b9ee75fcc5a1d8a 5328 admin optional dmraid_1.0.0.rc13-2ubuntu4.diff.gz
Original-Maintainer: Utnubu Team <email address hidden>
Package-Type: udeb

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Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

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nUHul18RSh0MC3+QRKy9vMw=
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Daniel T Chen (crimsun)
Changed in dmraid:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
Phillip Susi (psusi)
Changed in dmraid:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Antonio Penta (a-penta) wrote :

Hi, i install ubuntu 7 on xeon intell raid o but i have some problem with raid configuration the comand dmraid -r give me the message no raid disp and i have the same descripion on post https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dmraid/+bug/112402 but the patch is not good becouse a i have x64 architecture...Can you help me? thanks i post the outuput file obtain with the comand:
dd if=/dev/sda of=outputfile skip
 that i write in this how to:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidDebug

Revision history for this message
Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Please try the latest gutsy gibbon livecd and see if that works for you.

Revision history for this message
xprimnt (xprimnt) wrote :

In case anybody is still adding offsets to the more recent packages, my FastTrack TX2plus RAID0 offset was 951.

A "quick" (read: long, painstaking) run through the instructions above got my RAID recognized and I could mount /dev/mapper/pdc_crazylettercombination2 and get all the data off my Windows partition. Turns out the Ubuntu LiveCD is also a great recovery tool!

Revision history for this message
Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

I'm having this issue with a Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600 notebook. It uses an Intel ICH7-M SATA controller customized by Toshiba. The fdisk results and output file are attached. This is on gutsy, btw.

Revision history for this message
djtm (djtm) wrote : JMicron Raid-0

Hey,

one more attachment:
SATA controller: JMicron Technologies, Inc. JMicron 20360/20363 AHCI Controller
Raid 0

The DD output seems to take forever... will post it today if it finishes...

Revision history for this message
Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Portending, you need to adjust the skip= value to be correct for your hard disk. In your case it should be 156299488. If this is the value that you used, then I can not see any metadata in the output file. Would you be able to reformat the drives and recreate the array to help find the data?

Antonio, your file is entirely empty as well, only containing zeroes. What was the skip= value you used, and what is the output of sudo fdisk -lu?

Revision history for this message
Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

Thank You Phillip, I used a different value. I will give that a try tonight or tomorrow and post the output. I appreciate the help.

Revision history for this message
Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

Here's the file with the suggested skip value.

I think I may know my problem. Toshiba Qosmios come with a instant on TV/DVD player. This is eating about 100MB of space off of sda (Disk 1). I have tried all sorts of things to recover this space. Every utility I have tried simply doesn't see it correctly (as 80GB), and the few that do report it correctly, report it incorrectly at the same time in a differnt part of the tool. I've tried testdisk, UBCD, Parted Magic Live CD, Gparted live cd... Any Suggestions? The second disk is identical except for size. the Serial #'s are even sequential. I have the correct values from the second disk (sector count, geometry, etc.), but when I try to modify disk 1, it will not save it.

The Qosmio Player CD that Toshiba sent me, and that is available for download on their site, will not remove it because it's a different version (the cd) than what came installed on the computer.) They updated the version because a BIOS update broke the old version. The BIOS (Toshiba made BIOS), when I recreated the array, reports disk 1 as 79GB and disk 2 as 80GB. I'm beginning to think, unless I can find something to low-level edit and format the disk, I might have to wait until this spring when I upgrade the hard drives.

That was probably information overload, but thanks for any help.

Phillip Susi (psusi)
Changed in dmraid:
importance: Wishlist → Medium
status: Fix Released → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Portending, that file appears to contain much the same data. It may be that the metadata is hidden by the bios when it hides this player thing. I would also suggest calling Toshiba support and asking them how to remove this player and recover the full disk space.

I've never heard of a laptop with a raid, or even just two disks... heh.

Revision history for this message
qwerty9967 (joseph-m-ernst) wrote :

I am having the same problem and the help guide says to post here asking for help. dmraid -rD didn't generate any files so used the fdisk and dd commands to generate the attached files. Any help that you can give would be greatly appreciated.

Revision history for this message
Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

This is really getting to me. I like to solve things! =P So, I've recovered the full size of the first drive. I had to use a tool from http://blog.atola.com/ (The Capacity Restore Tool), and since my drives are on a fakeraid controller, I had to use a desktop computer to do it (glad I'm out of warranty.) Still, no joy, so I've tried installing fedora, again, no joy. Then, last night while reading it over an Idea struck me: Should the data dump come from partitioned space? Because mine was from empty space, no data, no partition, no nothing. Should I have a partition in that space? If so how can I install Ubuntu, though. Maybe make a blank Partition for /, one for home, and one for swap before installation, reboot from live cd again and try again? Or an NTFS or FAT32 partition, Since I cant install onto RAID from ubuntu., Although I do have Partition Magic, so Maybe that will work. Well, I'm going to find out, I got all day and I just bought some Dark Roasted Sumatran Bold (EXCELLENT COFFEE - WARNING: ULCER ALERT =D) My computer desk is cleared off, my data is backing up as we speak, (Disks are not in RAID, JBOD in BIOS, though still detected as raid volumes in windows due to weird toshiba drivers. I'm gonna switch to Intels Matrix Storage Drivers, I tried 'em, they work and are stable, it IS an Intel fakeraid, re-branded as toshiba by drivers). Coffee is brewing, and I have a half dozen donuts in a box, fresh from my favorite shop. I'm gonna go all out. I've reformatted and changed raid more times than i remember in the last 2 weeks, whats another days effort.

Sorry, kinda a rant, basically, I'm gonna try to do it with a partition where the data is. I'm going all out. It's a mission, maybe a foolish or pointless one, but I'm an obsessive compulsive and love solving problems, so I'm gonna do it for the thrill of the chase, and If I need some help, I may be back, and If this works, I WILL be back, because Ubuntu v6.06 WORKED on my RAID 0, and I want it back. =D.

Post Script: I know, long rant, but I'm worked up and I love challenges, and windows doesn't provide them anymore, while I'm still relatively new to Linux and I get the thrill of it! WOOHOOO! MORE COFFEE!!! =D

Revision history for this message
Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

Ooooh, goody goody goody. I've found stuff. I just don't know what to make of it. I found all sorts of stuff in the output file, But its more than a megabyte before the end, which subtracting 2000 gave me. I tried with 156291488 in the skip field, or subtracting 10000, and got a 5mb file with lots of stuff. I opened it in GHex, and found tons of stuff about "Windows Driver", my hdd models and serial #'s, "$Logical>" and "$MAGNIA$>", and "Expansion BIOS Started", and also "KRC created a RAID0.successfully." It's all at about offset 002EBF67 in GHex and onward, though there is other stuff at the beginning but its gibberish to me.

Files Posted, sorry if its big.

This begs the question, what did Toshiba do to this Intel RAID controller, and was it a BIOS update that did it. It worked back when I used the older BIOS, v1.70 and Ubuntu v6.06 methinks and below IIRC, I'm on BIOS v3.60, which is "Vista Compliant" =/, and maybe be the cause. If this be the case, I wonder how I can get my raid supported if at all. A lot of info in the output file was seemingly BIOS related, or maybe acpi related events. It's a blank NTFS partition. No OS. I might go back to BIOS v1.70 and try, cuz I WILL NOT use vista, xp/ubuntu is the way for me, and I wish I could get OpenSUSE on it too. I like ubuntu for Desktop stuff, and Suse for tinkering, and I will look for an old ubuntu v6.06 cd to try. Wish me luck.

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Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

WOW, I'm all over the place! Ubuntu DOES recognize my RAID 0, just not fully. I rebooted to the live cd 1 more time and opened the computer browser, and see "149.0GB Volume: disk", right clicking it and selecting properties shows 149.0GB, File system NTFS. but the ubuntu installer and GParted see 2 disks (so does the alternate installer cd, ive tried.), and when I open it i get a bunch of files that should be deleted, but it was just a quick format to ntfs, so, and when i try to access a file it says file not found. But it DOES recognize the raid. I'm at a loss, and think I'm screwed. Either my raid support was dropped from the installer, my bios updates screwed me over, or I don't know what else.... I'm gonna try a few things, but I'm pretty much giving up. I appreciate the tolerance of my rantings and goings on. Bye.

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Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

Last Post, I give up.

I have searched the ubuntu forums, google, and countless linux mailing lists and forums, and discovered, the few people who own Toshiba Qosmios that use linux, are all in the same boat. It worked in v6.06 and v6.10, and is broken at all points later. I'm going to try v6.10 and see if I can live without the latest goodies. If not I've got a few distros I'd like to try still, so maybe maybe. But I now know that Toshiba Qosmio Notebooks RAID 0 option is BROKEN in ubuntu after v6.10. I hope it comes back in v8.04. I really like ubuntu. Also, I'm going to search for a bug related to this (Toshiba Issue), add my two cents, and move on. I am defeated. I'd like to thank you for tolerating me and trying to help.

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Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Portending, the installer will always see the two physical disks... the question is, does it also see the /dev/mapper/xxxx virtual raid disk? If not, and you want to see if you can find the metadata on the disk, then do this:

To start, you may as well blow away any partitions on the disk. Then we want to zero out the last 2 MB of the disk so you can be sure that anything written there is going to have to do with the raid metadata. Do sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda seek=156299488. Repeat for each disk in the array. Then reboot and go into the bios and make sure that you have the raid functions enabled, but when you go into the raid set configuration screen, it should not recognize any raid sets. Then create one. Finally, look at the data on the last 2 MB again.

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Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

I found the meta data. I ACTUALLY found it. thanks for the zeroing hint Phillip, I completely zeroed both disks, to be sure, as there was all sorts of stuff I didn't know. I narrowed it down and found it located on /dev/sda at sector 156297345.

After narrowing it down I ran :

sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=outputfile skip=156297345

then :

sudo hexdump -C outputfile > outputfile.txt

I started by dumping the last 5 megabytes of disk space and looking at it in a hex editor, then just counting how many bytes it was to the data. with that I figured, well, 512 bytes a sector, so some easy math to the meta data. Then I double checked by comparing the 5mb output to the one I concluded with.

I don't know if I should, but heres the hex dump, probably formatted crazily:

00000000 24 4d 41 47 4e 49 41 24 1f 31 15 0f 00 00 00 00 |$MAGNIA$.1......|
00000010 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000020 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................|
*
00000060 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000070 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 09 |................|
00000080 24 4c 6f 67 69 63 61 6c 1f 31 15 0f 1f 31 15 0f |$Logical.1...1..|
00000090 1f 31 15 0f 02 02 01 01 02 02 00 00 00 00 05 17 |.1..............|
000000a0 00 e8 50 09 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 01 00 00 00 00 |..P.......@.....|
000000b0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
*
00000100 54 4f 53 48 49 42 41 20 4d 4b 38 30 33 32 47 53 |TOSHIBA MK8032GS|
00000110 58 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 |X |
00000120 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 20 20 20 20 20 20 | .. |
00000130 20 20 20 20 20 36 36 50 4f 34 37 39 33 53 00 00 | 66PO4793S..|
00000140 54 4f 53 48 49 42 41 20 4d 4b 38 30 33 32 47 53 |TOSHIBA MK8032GS|
00000150 58 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 |X |
00000160 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 20 20 20 20 20 20 | .. |
00000170 20 20 20 20 20 36 36 50 4f 34 37 39 30 53 00 00 | 66PO4790S..|
00000180 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
*
00205e00

Anyways, I'm uploading my results, the hex dump text file, the original output file, and a hex dump text file with a summary of this and my fdisk output. I'm gonna look at the dmraid source my self, but I doubt I can do that stuff. Thanks!

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Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

forgot files. oops! Thanks again.

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Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

So, I've added my offset to the source, and tried to compile, but I can't, it always fails, and gives me errors in the sourcefile devmapper.c. I am not a programmer, except a bit of dabbling in windows vb.net and C++, and am wondering what I need to install besides build-essential to compile and install this.

./configure output and make output attached.

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Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Unfortunately, adding an offset to pdc.c isn't going to do the trick because that looks NOTHING like a promise fasttrack raid header.

I'll take a look at it tomorrow hopefully and see if I think I can recognize most of it and maybe they just changed the ASCII signature at the beginning, or if it is completely voodoo.

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Portending Ennui (jacob-richards114) wrote :

No, I suppose not. Its an Intel RAID. =D

I've given up, and just bought bigger hard drives instead. I appreciate your help and I learned a few things, so I am more or less happy with it. Thanks Again!

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aranthor (ipippo-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Hi everyone.
I'm trying to install Ubuntu 7.10 on a Promise Fasttrack S-150 TX2 (installed on a Dell Dimension 8300) with stripe.
I've followed the procedure described in the thread, but, also if I've found that my PDC_CONFIGOFFSETS is 241, I was not able to compile dmraid from the source code neither on the live cd I'm trying to install, neither on a n other PC.
I attach also the result of the dd.
Thaks a lot

OUtput of fdisk:

Disk /dev/sda: 74.0 GB, 74000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 8996 cylinders, total 144531250 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

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Bill Roberts (wroberts) wrote :

I'm having the same Promise Fasttrack problem.

The fdisk results are :
Disk /dev/sda: 74.3 GB, 74355769344 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9039 cylinders, total 145226112 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000d1b1f

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 139219289 69609613+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 139219290 145211534 2996122+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 139219353 145211534 2996091 82 Linux swap / Solaris

and the dump is

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Bill Roberts (wroberts) wrote :

Didn't finish the last post very gracefully. The dump is at the beginning, not the end (obviously) and I would greatly appreciate help, since I want to make my RAID arary bootable and use the ubuntu server distro instead of the desktop and GRUB gets hopelessly confused at present, unless I turn off the array in the BIOS.

Thanks

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Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

aranthor and Bill, please try this package and let me know if this fixes it.

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William (william-dupre) wrote :

Morning,
I have the problem when trying to follow the installation for Heron on a Dell XPS 1730.

root@ubuntu:/home# dmraid -rD
ERROR: isw: Error finding disk table slot for /dev/sdb
ERROR: isw: Error finding disk table slot for /dev/sda
No RAID disks
root@ubuntu:/home# fdisk -u -l /dev/sda
root@ubuntu:/home# fdisk -u -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table
root@ubuntu:/home#
root@ubuntu:/home# dd if=/dev/sdb of=outputfile skip=312579808
2000+0 records in
2000+0 records out
1024000 bytes (1.0 MB) copied, 0.373317 s, 2.7 MB/s

When doing an hexedit outputfile I have a completely null file (00 00 00 00 all along)

Thanks for your help.
William

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William (william-dupre) wrote :

Hello again,

I have done the test also with version 7.10 with the exact same results.
One thing I do not get is why I need to run the command on /sdb and not sda which also exists.
Is it because of the way the disk is set up by Dell ?

Thanks a lot
William

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Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

William, can you post the output of sudo dmesg?

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William (william-dupre) wrote : Re: [Bug 112402] Re: Fasttrack Promise not recognized: "No RAID disks"
  • unnamed Edit (822 bytes, text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1)

Philip,

I will do that as soon as I can. Thanks for your answer. I am anxious to be
able to dual boot this machine.

William

On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 9:26 PM, Phillip Susi <email address hidden> wrote:

> William, can you post the output of sudo dmesg?
>
> --
> Fasttrack Promise not recognized: "No RAID disks"
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/112402
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

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Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

William, you appear to have attached your comments as a text file instead of the dmesg output.

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William (william-dupre) wrote :

Hi Philip sorry for the delay.

Here is the output.

Thanks for your help
William

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William (william-dupre) wrote :

Upping the thread.

Any idea on this one ? I start looking around because I wonder if the
ubuntu@ubuntu:/dev/disk/by-id$ lspci | grep RAID
00:1f.2 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 82801 SATA RAID Controller (rev 02)
is a fakeraid or a real RAID needing another kind of drivers.

Thanks for your input. I will soon go over to a pure Ubuntu system on the Dell XPS and I would like very much to keep the RAID0 capacity.

Thanks
William

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Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Yes William, it is a fake raid. I think I know what your issue is, but since it is not related to a Promise Fasttrack controller, please file a separate bug report. Please title it "isw: Error finding disk table slot" and include the output of dmraid -n /dev/sda and hdparm -i /dev/sda.

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Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Returning to fix released since the newly discovered PDC offsets are in the current package.

Changed in dmraid:
status: In Progress → Fix Released
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Barnabas (morondoron) wrote :

Hello,
Im new to Linux and my writing english is very bad i guess, sorry for that ;)

but my problem is

I got a Asrock 939 Dualsata MoBo with Ali M5289 Raid

Kubuntu or dmraid not identifie my raid it says "No Raid disks"

so I followed the instrutions on the howto and wanna post the outputfile of the dd and fdisk commands here

I hope for help

Thx
Barnabas

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Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

This bug report is for Promise Fasttrack controllers. ALI is not supported by dmraid.

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Barnabas (morondoron) wrote :

Oh ok...so there is no chance to get it running ? :(
Or do you know some links to get more info about?

Greets
Barnabas

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