Not working on ATI SB750 as of debian's 1.0.0.rc15 (updated: raid1, 2.6.32, debian's 1.0.0.rc16)

Ezequiel Lara Gómez jisakiel at yahoo.es
Mon Jan 11 15:54:51 UTC 2010


Thanks so very much! it worked. I swapped the second drive (not the WD one) without success. Although the HPA implementation for the sb750 appears to be buggy (according to hdparm, which says: "HPA setting seems invalid (buggy kernel device driver?)"), after resizing the WD to your number of sectors with Np *and* rebooting and remaking the array it works fine ^_^. 


However I would consider this as a dmraid bug, isn't it? I mean: if the promise code always does that, dmraid should not look in the last sectors, but in the last sectors which fulfill that divisibility condition. Sort of hiding those sectors by dmraid and not by HPA (sort of like dmraid or the promise bios seem to do, as I have noticed that I have some sectors less in the raid device than in the drives, although that might be related to gigabyte boundary, which I left enabled this time). 

Peeking superficially at the code it would seem to need some massaging in lib/format/ataraid/pdc.c, perhaps adding some logic around begin_sectors[], inside pdc_read_metadata... or inside the do{ } where the sector offsets are checked (I don't know if anywhere else would need to be modified as well; as I said I haven't read it through).

btw I saw in pdc.c some comment... #define pdc_t_raid10 0x2 (not defind by Promise (yet)) (sic). As sb750 seems to have raid5 and 10 options I can extract the metadata to add it if anyone wants (although only if guided a little, as I don't really know where to begin without studying the whole source).


Nevertheless thanks a lot, for now raid1 works ^_^. 

PS: Now I have the typical problem where I can't identify the partitions by uuid nor by label (as I see thrice the same ones, lol), but that is easier to solve (just referring to /dev/mapper/pdc_whateverpX will do, although if I knew how to hide sdb and sdc would be nicer, to avoid accidents - suggestions are welcome). 


>
>De: James Olson <big_spender12 at lycos.com>
>Para: "ATARAID (eg, Promise Fasttrak, Highpoint 370) related discussions" <ataraid-list at redhat.com>
>Enviado: lun,11 enero, 2010 03:17
>Asunto: Re: Not working on ATI SB750 as of debian's 1.0.0.rc15 (updated: raid1, 2.6.32, debian's 1.0.0.rc16)
>
>Hello,
>
>The problem is that Promise raid BIOS stores it's metadata near the end of the drive, but only in a sector number that is evenly divisible by 63 (sectors/track).   My WD 250GB drive (originally in a Dell computer) is the same exact size as yours but I reduced it in size using the hdparm -N host protected area function by 2 sectors, see the man page for hdparm to see how to do this:
>
>
># fdisk -l /dev/sdb
>
>
>Disk /dev/sdb: 249.9 GB, 249999998976 bytes
>
>255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30394 cylinders
>
>Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
>Disk identifier: 0x3b0cc04a
>
>
>Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>
>/dev/sdb1   *           1        2550    20482843+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
>
>/dev/sdb2            2551        2614      514080   83  Linux
>
>/dev/sdb3            2615        7458    38909430    7  HPFS/NTFS
>
>/dev/sdb4            7459       30393   184225387+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
>
>/dev/sdb5            7459        7522      514048+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
>
>/dev/sdb6            7523       30393   183711276   83  Linux
>
># hdparm -N /dev/sdb
>
>
>/dev/sdb:
>
>max sectors   = 488281248/488281250, HPA is enabled
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>>---------[ Received Mail Content ]----------
>>
>>Subject : Re: Not working on ATI SB750 as of debian's 1.0.0.rc15 (updated:	raid1, 2.6.32, debian's 1.0.0.rc16)
>>
>>Date : Sat, 9 Jan 2010 02:34:19 +0000 (GMT)
>>
>>From : Ezequiel_Lara_Gómez <jisakiel at yahoo.es>
>>
>>To : ataraid-list at redhat.com
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>>
>>Gonna have another stab at this, as I would really like to have working multiOS raid. Doesn't work yet as of rc16 and 2.6.32. 
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>>The trouble is that metadata is only found in one of the drives, so raid0 can't be activated and raid1 appears as degraded, although in windows (obviously) it works fine, and the bios shows it as functional. 
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>>I believe it might be because of slightly different drive sizes, although I can't really confirm it as my two only identical drives are already in use in a different raid1. 
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>>In my tests: 
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>>sda is my main root drive, sdd is an usb drive, sdb is a western digital of 250G and sdc is a maxtor of 251G (as shown in the bios). Neither of gigabyte boundary options (on/off) make a difference, although in these tests it is off, which is not the default. And I get the same results with raid1 and raid0, although this test is with raid1. 
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>># dmraid -ay -f pdc -vvv -d 
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>>NOTICE: checking format identifier pdc
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>>WARN: locking /var/lock/dmraid/.lock
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>>NOTICE: skipping removable device /dev/hda
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>>NOTICE: skipping removable device /dev/hdb
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>>NOTICE: /dev/sdd: pdc     discovering
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>>NOTICE: /dev/sdc: pdc     discovering
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>>NOTICE: /dev/sdc: pdc metadata discovered
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>>NOTICE: /dev/sdb: pdc     discovering
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>>NOTICE: /dev/sda: pdc     discovering
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>>DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_dihbhdgahc
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>>DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_dihbhdgahc
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>>DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_dihbhdgahc
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>>DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_dihbhdgahc
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>>NOTICE: added /dev/sdc to RAID set "pdc_dihbhdgahc"
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>>DEBUG: checking pdc device "/dev/sdc"
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>>ERROR: pdc: wrong # of devices in RAID set "pdc_dihbhdgahc" [1/2] on /dev/sdc
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>>DEBUG: set status of set "pdc_dihbhdgahc" to 4
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>>DEBUG: checking pdc device "/dev/sdc"
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>>ERROR: pdc: wrong # of devices in RAID set "pdc_dihbhdgahc" [1/2] on /dev/sdc
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>>DEBUG: set status of set "pdc_dihbhdgahc" to 4
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>>RAID set "pdc_dihbhdgahc" already active
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>>INFO: Activating mirror raid set "pdc_dihbhdgahc"
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>>NOTICE: discovering partitions on "pdc_dihbhdgahc"
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>>NOTICE: /dev/mapper/pdc_dihbhdgahc: dos     discovering
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>>NOTICE: /dev/mapper/pdc_dihbhdgahc: dos metadata discovered
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>>DEBUG: _find_set: searching pdc_dihbhdgahc1
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>>DEBUG: _find_set: not found pdc_dihbhdgahc1
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>>NOTICE: created partitioned RAID set(s) for /dev/mapper/pdc_dihbhdgahc
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>>RAID set "pdc_dihbhdgahc1" already active
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>>INFO: Activating partition raid set "pdc_dihbhdgahc1"
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>>WARN: unlocking /var/lock/dmraid/.lock
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>>DEBUG: freeing devices of RAID set "pdc_dihbhdgahc"
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>>DEBUG: freeing device "pdc_dihbhdgahc", path "/dev/sdc"
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>>DEBUG: freeing devices of RAID set "pdc_dihbhdgahc1"
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>>DEBUG: freeing device "pdc_dihbhdgahc1", path "/dev/mapper/pdc_dihbhdgahc"
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>>I can attach or upload the generated dmraid.pdc folder if anyone wants (don't really want to overload the archives). However it does only contain sdc.xxx files, and nothing about sdb. I can provide dd of the required sectors of the other drive as well (just tell me which ones are!). 
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>>Just in case I forced a synchronize with the raidxpert web interface from windows, which already completed, without any difference. 
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>>The geometry of the drives (which are slightly different, as the bigger one is older): 
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>>root at blackie:~# fdisk -l /dev/sdb
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>>Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250000000000 bytes
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>>255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30394 cylinders
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>>Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
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>>Disk identifier: 0x85311ed9
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>>Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
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>>/dev/sdb1               1       30273   243161088    7  HPFS/NTFS
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>>root at blackie:~# fdisk -l /dev/sdc
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>>Disk /dev/sdc: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
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>>255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders
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>>Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
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>>Disk identifier: 0x85311ed9
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>>Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
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>>/dev/sdc1               1       30273   243161088    7  HPFS/NTFS
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>>If anyone should be interested in making ataraid work in SB750 southbridge, just contact me and I will follow instructions for making the tests in the hardware. I have the two drives referred above available for this testing, and might perhaps get another 250G and an additional smaller one if required for any other raid types; so long, I am only trying raid0 and 1 with two of them. I will repeat the test ASAP with the *other* drive (which is exactly 250 IIRC). 
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>>Just in case it helps: 
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>>jisakiel at blackie:~$ uname -a
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>>Linux blackie 2.6.32-trunk-amd64 #1 SMP Thu Jan 7 17:44:12 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux
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>>jisakiel at blackie:~$ apt-cache policy dmraid
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>>dmraid:
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>>Instalados: 1.0.0.rc16-3
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>>Candidato: 1.0.0.rc16-3
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>>Tabla de versión:
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>>*** 1.0.0.rc16-3 0
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>>990 http://ftp.de.debian.org testing/main Packages
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>>500 http://ftp.de.debian.org unstable/main Packages
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>>100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
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>>1.0.0.rc14-7 0
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>>500 http://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main Packages
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>>Motherboard is an Asus M3A78-T with the latest (1701) bios; I can provide as well the raid bios version if needed. SB is the SB750. 
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>>Thanks for the attention and sorry for the long email; I would really like to troubleshoot this. 
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>>----- Mensaje original ----
>>
>>
>>> De: Ezequiel Lara Gómez 
>>
>>
>>> Para: ataraid-list at redhat.com
>>
>>
>>> Enviado: mar,17 marzo, 2009 17:58
>>
>>
>>> Asunto: Not working on ATI SB750 as of debian's 1.0.0.rc15
>>
>>
>>> 
>>
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>>> I saw in this mailing list some patches related to dmraid working in SB600 
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>>> (https://www.redhat.com/archives/ataraid-list/2009-March/msg00005.html, and 
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>>> redhat's bug 
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>>> http://www.redhat.com/archives/ataraid-list/2008-March/msg00015.html ). Debian 
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>>> has this patches in experimental's version 1.0.0.rc15-3 in the file 
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>>> "09_promise-add-offsets.patch": 
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>>> 
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>>> -#define PDC_CONFIGOFFSETS      63,255,256,16,399,675,735,974,991
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>>> +#define PDC_CONFIGOFFSETS      63,255,256,16,399,675,735,974,991,911,974,591
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>>> 
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>>> 
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>>> However it still doesn't work on my Asus M3A78-T with SB750 and latest bios 
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>>> (0802). 
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>>> 
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>>> By the way, I noticed the raid manager, both the windows web-based and the BIOS 
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>>> one (duh, of course), allow you to create several raids on a couple of disks, 
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>>> and I recall having readed on this list that it -non-full-drive raids- wasn't 
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>>> supported as no promise controller was documented to support it yet... I could 
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>>> be wrong though. 
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>>> 
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>>> 
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>>> Right now I have three drives: One, a fast WD 150G drive, working standalone, 
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>>> and then two slightly different 250G drives (Maxtor and WD, one appears as being 
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>>> 251G). The array in bios is created with these two drives as one RAID1 (2x1) 
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>>> 200G in size, and then the remaining space as raid0 (~91G IIRC). dmraid -r -vvv 
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>>> -d only finds metadata in one of the drives, and only for the first array. I 
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>>> also tried in plain whole-disk raid1 and raid0 configuration and it still didn't 
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>>> find the metadata on both disks (with debian's version which has that patch 
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>>> preapplied!). 
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>>> 
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>>> I'm more than willing to help debugging / testing this, as I'd really like 
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>>> dmraid to work on this configuration (dmraid + IFS for using ext3 in windows = 
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>>> multibootheaven ;) ). I can provide dumps if wanted (tar-gzed of course ;) ); 
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>>> drives are clean and I won't use them until I get this to work.  If needed I'll 
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>>> give more precise info about my setup from windows / the bios. 
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>>> 
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>>> 
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>>> 
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>>> PS: 
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>>> 
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>>> jisakiel at blackie:~/src/dmraid/dmraid-1.0.0.rc15/debian/patches$ sudo dmraid -r 
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>>> -vvv -d
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>>> WARN: locking /var/lock/dmraid/.lock
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>>> NOTICE: skipping removable device /dev/hda
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>>> NOTICE: skipping removable device /dev/hdb
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: asr     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: ddf1    discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: hpt37x  discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: hpt45x  discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: isw     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: jmicron discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: lsi     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: nvidia  discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: pdc     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: sil     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdc: via     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: asr     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: ddf1    discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: hpt37x  discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: hpt45x  discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: isw     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: jmicron discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: lsi     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: nvidia  discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: pdc     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: pdc metadata discovered
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: sil     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sdb: via     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: asr     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: ddf1    discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: hpt37x  discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: hpt45x  discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: isw     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: jmicron discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: lsi     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: nvidia  discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: pdc     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: sil     discovering
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>>> NOTICE: /dev/sda: via     discovering
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>>> INFO: RAID device discovered:
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>>> 
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>>> /dev/sdb: pdc, "pdc_bcdgijjhcg", mirror, ok, 410156288 sectors, data@ 0
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>>> WARN: unlocking /var/lock/dmraid/.lock
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>>_______________________________________________
>>
>>
>>Ataraid-list mailing list
>>
>>
>>Ataraid-list at redhat.com
>>
>>
>>https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/ataraid-list 
>>
>>


      
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