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Can't detect RAID array


5er
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My motherboard (Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe) has two SATA contollers: AMD SB 600 and Marvell 6121. I have Mandriva Linux installed on a 750GB drive and want to put two 1500GB drives into a RAID0 field.

If I connect the latter two to the Marvell connectors (set to RAID in BIOS) and the former one into an AMD connector (set to IDE), set the Marvell RAID0 field up and boot from the 750GB drive, I cannot see any trace of the 1500G drives. "dmraid -a y" says that there are no RAID drives.

If I connect the 1500GB ones into AMD connectors (set to RAID) and 750GB into Marvell (set to IDE), I can only boot from the newly created RAID field, therefore I cannot boot at all.

If I connect all drives into AMD connectors (set to RAID) and set up a RAID0 field with the 1500GB discs, but leave the 750GB alone, I can see the 1500GB drives separate.

"dmraid -a y" outputs:

RAID set "pdc_bcffjbc" was activated
RAID set "pdc_bcffjbc" was not activated

And after I do that if I check diskdrake again, it now shows a mysterious unpartitioned 745GiB drive called "mapper/pdc_bcffjbc" instead of the two separate 1500GB drives that were displayed before. The 750GB (698GiB) drive is called "sdb".

 

I'm sorry if this would fit into the hardware category better, but it's hard to say.

 

[moved from Software by spinynorman]

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I have tried running the installer of Mandriva 2010.2 with the 3rd setting (all drives in AMD), but the same thing happens. It says it detects a RAID array consisting of the correct two drives and asks me to activate it, if I do, I see the 745GiB drive called "mapper/pdc_bcffjbc". Why is this drive so small?

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What kind of partition tables are set on the two drives you want to stripe?

I think it's better to cfdisk one of the two drives (single primary partition), and then carbon copy its partition table to the second drive:

 

# sfdisk -d /dev/sda > table
# sfdisk /dev/sdb < table

Edited by scarecrow
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# sfdisk -d /dev/sda > table

sfdisk: ERROR: sector 0 does not have an msdos signature
/dev/sda: unrecognized partition table type
No partitions found

The drives are both unpartitioned. One of them had a partition and data before, but it got its MBR erased when I set it up for the RAID array. I didn't know it was possible to set up a RAID array with partitioned drives.

 

EDIT: Note that I have managed to get RAID with Marvell 6121 working in Windows XP (not the AMD SB600, though, it causes a BSOD if it's in RAID mode), but I can't find any Marvell 6121 drivers for Linux.

 

EDIT2: The "Browse and configure hardware" thing in drakconf does list a RAID Controller called "88SE6121 SATA II Controller", but the RAID array is not listed in "Hard Disk".

There is a "Generic" "Mass Storage Device" listed under "USB Mass Storage Devices" that I don't know what it is, however. (EDIT: Probably my card reader.)

The drive is not visible in the diskdrake either.

Edited by 5er
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When plugging all drives into the SB600 controller (the third option) and removing the RAID array and making the same array again, except setting the size to 20000MB and booting into Linux, dmraid -a y now does nothing and says:

ERROR: pdc: identifying /dev/sdc, magic_0: 0x16977d/0x169774, magic_1: 0x16977d/0x0, total_disks: 0
ERROR: adding /dev/sdc to RAID set "pdc_beiafge"
ERROR: removing RAID set "pdc_beiafge"
ERROR: pdc: identifying /dev/sda, magic_0: 0x169774/0x169774, magic_1: 0x169774/0x0, total_disks: 0
ERROR: adding /dev/sda to RAID set "pdc_beiafge"
ERROR: removing RAID set "pdc_beiafge"
ERROR: no RAID set found
no raid sets

If the array is big enough, it works, but it only has the capacity of 745GiB (as I mentioned before).

The output of dmraid -a y is:

RAID set "pdc_bcffjbc" was activated
RAID set "pdc_bcffjbc" was not activated

 

EDIT: I have managed to get Marvell RAID working too by setting a driver flag (called "marvel_enable", description: "Marvell SATA via AHCI (1 = enabled)") of "SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA" SATA controller. I can see both the drives normally (like with SB600 explained in the first post) and I can use dmraid -a y to enable the RAID, with similar output:

RAID set "pdc_bfafcfd" was activated
RAID set "pdc_bfafcfd" was not activated

And with the same problem as with the SB600: The RAID array only has the capacity of 745GiB.

 

The array is obviously detected, but for some reason it has the wrong size (and number of cylinders). Is there a way to tell dmraid what the actual size is?

 

Is it OK to change the topic's title to better explain the problem (it's not not detecting the array, it's its wrong size)?

Edited by 5er
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I have tried a Fedora 14 live cd and the situation is the same.

 

UPDATE: gparted shows a warning for the drive, saying "Invalid argument during seek for read on /dev/dm-0".

Edited by 5er
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