Hi again, Thanks for all the replies, I really appreciate the help. I'm starting to think that there might be something wrong elsewhere on my computer due to the fact that both PATA nvraid and silraid aren't working. I would have expected at least one of the two to work. When I get back home from work, later, I will find the output of those commands suggested by Molle and post them to the list. I would also like to paste the metadata, so if someone could help me out on how I should go about getting it, that would be great :) Once again, thanks for the help! Kind regards, Richard Powell. On 10/28/05, Giampiero Gabbiani <giampiero_gabbiani@xxxxxx> wrote: > Hi Richard, > > > Hey all, > > I have a SYBA RAID card which uses the Silicon Image 680 (or sometimes > > referred to as CMD680) medley chipset. I came across dmraid whilst > > searching for a working solution for my fakeraid setup, and noticed that > > the website reports that the Silicon Image Medley chipsets are supported by > > dmraid. The problems is, I've tried several boot disks which include > > As for I know, the difference from mdadm (software raid) and dmraid (ataraid) > is that the former manages the raid paradigm enterely from the kernel code, > while the second can access to the metadata set by the BIOS of the > controller. > > > support for dmraid (such as the standard gentoo livecd with boot param > > dodmraid, the gen2dmraid boot cd, the ahorn5 boot cd and fedora core 4's > > livecd), and none of these seem so be able to detect my raid array. > > Running a dmraid -ay on any of the cds yields a "No Software RAID disks", > > however the kernel always detects the card perfectly (the two disks can be > > accessed directly through /dev/hde and /dev/hdg). > > I don't know about these distros but, with mandrake/mandriva, I experimented > similar problems. This was due to the fact that dmraid needs the device > mapper module in order to work, but, in mandrake, this was compiled as module > AND was NOT present in the initrd. > > If this is your case, there are two alternatives: > > - recompile the kernel with the device mapper support set NOT as a module (I > made so...) > > - build an initrd with the device mapper module present > > Before doing so try the following : > > 1) enabling the kernel device-mapper > > [root@aphroditi kernel]# modprobe dm-mod > [root@aphroditi kernel]# tail -f /var/log/messages > <snip> > Oct 10 19:32:50 aphroditi kernel: device-mapper: 4.4.0-ioctl (2005-01-12) > initialised: dm-devel@xxxxxxxxxx > <snip> > > 2) scanning ATARAID devices: > > [root@aphroditi kernel]# dmraid -r > /dev/hdc: sil, "sil_afbgbgcccjcab", mirror, ok, 240119680 sectors, data@ 0 > /dev/hde: sil, "sil_afbgbgcccjcab", mirror, ok, 240119680 sectors, data@ 0 > > [root@aphroditi kernel]# dmraid -s > *** Set > name : sil_afbgbgcccjcab > size : 240119680 > stride : 0 > type : mirror > status : ok > subsets: 0 > devs : 2 > spares : 0 > > 3) enabling the found devices > > [root@aphroditi kernel]# dmraid -ay > > after this the RAID device is mapped as /dev/mapper/sil_afbgbgcccjcab > > 4) after this, format the partition in not already done, and mount the device. > > > All of this leads me to believe that the Silicon Medley PATA Raid chipset > > is not currently supported by dmraid, and this support is limited to the > > data raid chipset (3112, I think). Also, my motherboard has Nforce3 PATA NV > > Just take a look at the code of dmraid, you'll find SilI0680 specific code > (i.e. it's true, sili0680 it's supported...). > > > Raid onboard as well, and dmraid does not work with that fakeraid solution > > either. > > Does this mean that no PATA solution for fakeraid exists in linux? > > I appreciate your help and would love to help out with getting PATA raid > > chipsets included in dmraid's support list. Please let me know how I can > > help out, or if a solution already exists, what it is. > > Kind Regards, > > -- > > Richard Powell (rspowell@xxxxxxxxx) > > **FINAL CONSIDERATIONS** > > Even if dmraid could see my SilI0680 controller, finally I went to mdadm > (software raid) for the following reasons: > > 1) both ataraid and mdadm use the CPU in order to manage the controller card, > that is: there is no CPU usage benefit from using dmraid or mdadm; > > 2) I couldn't find any daemon, in ataraid, able to perform the necessary > synchronization work in my RAID1 set. > The only solution found was periodically starting windows and let it do the > 'dirty job'.... > > Hope this could help. > Best Regards. > -- > Giampiero Gabbiani > > _______________________________________________ > > Ataraid-list@xxxxxxxxxx > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/ataraid-list > _______________________________________________ Ataraid-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/ataraid-list
