Rocketraid 640 raid 5 disabled

Rocketraid 640 raid 5 disabled

[Khurram Hassan]

I have a disabled raid 5 (3 disks) array on a Rocketraid 640. The full
sequence of events follows. After the array was shown as degraded, I
checked the webgui (under windows 7) which showed hard disk 3 was bad,
so changed this hard disk and the rebuild started. After a few hours,
I got a loud continuous beep from the system. Upon checking it, I
found that hard disk 1 had bad sectors and was offline. At this time,
the rebuild showed 85.1% complete. I clicked rescan and it came back
on online. At this time, I started copying data from the raid disk to
another hard disk which was not on the raid controller. The raid disk
had three volumes and I successfully copied the first volume data. It
was during data copy from the 2nd volume that hard disk 1 gave bad
sector message again and went offline. I clicked rescan, it came
online but then hard disk 2 and hard disk 3 went offline and the array
became disabled. The 3 disks are still recognized by the controller,
but the array shows only the 1st hard disk as part of the array.

Can I use mdadm to recover this array or at least to get the 2nd hard
disk as online so that I can copy data from it? I dont boot off the
array; I have another hard disk for that purpose. I have installed
ubuntu 12.04 on this boot hard disk and have loaded the driver for the
controller in it. I dont see anyhard disk devices under /dev for it. I
only have /dev/sdax which is for my boot hard disk.

Thanks.

Re: Rocketraid 640 raid 5 disabled

[Stan Hoeppner]

On 2/26/2013 9:11 PM, Khurram Hassan wrote:
> I have a disabled raid 5 (3 disks) array on a Rocketraid 640. The full
> sequence of events follows. After the array was shown as degraded, I
> checked the webgui (under windows 7) which showed hard disk 3 was bad,
> so changed this hard disk and the rebuild started. After a few hours,
> I got a loud continuous beep from the system. Upon checking it, I
> found that hard disk 1 had bad sectors and was offline. At this time,
> the rebuild showed 85.1% complete. I clicked rescan and it came back
> on online. At this time, I started copying data from the raid disk to
> another hard disk which was not on the raid controller. The raid disk
> had three volumes and I successfully copied the first volume data. It
> was during data copy from the 2nd volume that hard disk 1 gave bad
> sector message again and went offline. I clicked rescan, it came
> online but then hard disk 2 and hard disk 3 went offline and the array
> became disabled. The 3 disks are still recognized by the controller,
> but the array shows only the 1st hard disk as part of the array.
> 
> Can I use mdadm to recover this array or at least to get the 2nd hard
> disk as online so that I can copy data from it? I dont boot off the
> array; I have another hard disk for that purpose. I have installed
> ubuntu 12.04 on this boot hard disk and have loaded the driver for the
> controller in it. I dont see anyhard disk devices under /dev for it. I
> only have /dev/sdax which is for my boot hard disk.

Is this RAID5 array created/controlled by the RocketRAID firmware or
Linux md/RAID (mdadm).  It sounds like the RocketRAID.  In which case,
why would you think mdadm could fix a hardware RAID card problem?

-- 
Stan

Re: Rocketraid 640 raid 5 disabled

[Khurram Hassan]

I never said its a "hardware RAID card problem". I am talking about a
degraded raid 5 array in which 2 disks out of a total of 3 disks have
been marked offline even though all 3 disks are listed in the card's
gui. There is nothing wrong with the raid card itself.

I would like to use mdadm to re-write the array's metadata so that the
disks are accessible again. I have done it previously also but with an
intel array and loads of help from Neil Brown. I am hoping he can work
his magic again :)

On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 11:39 AM, Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com> wrote:
> On 2/26/2013 9:11 PM, Khurram Hassan wrote:
>> I have a disabled raid 5 (3 disks) array on a Rocketraid 640. The full
>> sequence of events follows. After the array was shown as degraded, I
>> checked the webgui (under windows 7) which showed hard disk 3 was bad,
>> so changed this hard disk and the rebuild started. After a few hours,
>> I got a loud continuous beep from the system. Upon checking it, I
>> found that hard disk 1 had bad sectors and was offline. At this time,
>> the rebuild showed 85.1% complete. I clicked rescan and it came back
>> on online. At this time, I started copying data from the raid disk to
>> another hard disk which was not on the raid controller. The raid disk
>> had three volumes and I successfully copied the first volume data. It
>> was during data copy from the 2nd volume that hard disk 1 gave bad
>> sector message again and went offline. I clicked rescan, it came
>> online but then hard disk 2 and hard disk 3 went offline and the array
>> became disabled. The 3 disks are still recognized by the controller,
>> but the array shows only the 1st hard disk as part of the array.
>>
>> Can I use mdadm to recover this array or at least to get the 2nd hard
>> disk as online so that I can copy data from it? I dont boot off the
>> array; I have another hard disk for that purpose. I have installed
>> ubuntu 12.04 on this boot hard disk and have loaded the driver for the
>> controller in it. I dont see anyhard disk devices under /dev for it. I
>> only have /dev/sdax which is for my boot hard disk.
>
> Is this RAID5 array created/controlled by the RocketRAID firmware or
> Linux md/RAID (mdadm).  It sounds like the RocketRAID.  In which case,
> why would you think mdadm could fix a hardware RAID card problem?
>
> --
> Stan
>
>
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Re: Rocketraid 640 raid 5 disabled

[Drew]

> I would like to use mdadm to re-write the array's metadata so that the
> disks are accessible again. I have done it previously also but with an
> intel array and loads of help from Neil Brown. I am hoping he can work
> his magic again :)

You probably won't be able to. The Intel RAID controllers were
possible because developers from Intel frequent this list and have
assisted in the efforts to get IMSM RAID supported by mdadm. The RAID
metadata from other controllers like Adaptec or LSI are usually
proprietary and afaik, are not supported by mdadm.


-- 
Drew

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
--Marie Curie

Re: Rocketraid 640 raid 5 disabled

[Drew]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 7:28 PM, Drew <drew.kay@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I would like to use mdadm to re-write the array's metadata so that the
>> disks are accessible again. I have done it previously also but with an
>> intel array and loads of help from Neil Brown. I am hoping he can work
>> his magic again :)
>
> You probably won't be able to. The Intel RAID controllers were
> possible because developers from Intel frequent this list and have
> assisted in the efforts to get IMSM RAID supported by mdadm. The RAID
> metadata from other controllers like Adaptec or LSI are usually
> proprietary and afaik, are not supported by mdadm.

Looking at the linux source closer for the hpt driver, I'm thinking
it's proprietary. There are several pre-compiled object files that
appear to contain the driver code for the various RAID related
functions. That also suggests the controller is a fakeraid controller,
a HPT trademark, especially given the price point locally.


-- 
Drew

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
--Marie Curie

"This started out as a hobby and spun horribly out of control."
-Unknown