[jpete]

I know someone out there is running Linux!

I promised myself that the next time Windows gave me problems, it was going. So now that day has arrived. I went with Kubuntu and it seems OK. Apart from "everything" what I need to know is how to set up my two SATA drives in a RAID setup. I need to access them so I can get some stuff off of them. I still have all my pictures and music on it and I'd like to try to get all my e-mail contacts off it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Mike]

http://www.ubuntu-in.org/wiki/SATA_RAID_Howto

 

[jpete]

Thanks Mike. I think that's still over my head at this early date.

I'm looking into getting a copy of "Ubuntu for Dummies".

It's a testament to how easy to use it is because I am able to get online, but that's about it.

I'm still trying to figure out how to set up another user account. Among other things....

 

[TronDD]

Do you still have Windows installed? It might be easier to just grab what you want from there and dump it to another partition or drive.

Is this software RAID or do you have a hardware RAID controller on your motherboard?

I'd install dmraid and run 'dmraid -r' and see if anything gets discovered.

Tim.

 

[jpete]

Do you still have Windows installed? It might be easier to just grab what you want from there and dump it to another partition or drive.

Is this software RAID or do you have a hardware RAID controller on your motherboard?

I'd install dmraid and run 'dmraid -r' and see if anything gets discovered.

Tim.

The biggest problem is I am in the process of moving and my XP CD is in a box somewhere and I can't locate it. The virus wiped out something and now I get a message saying that my copy of Windows isn't registered and it won't connect to the MS server to re-register. And, I don't have the license key anyway so it wouldn't do me any good.

I have RAID support on my motherboard. Thank you for your suggestion but I'm so clueless, I don't know where or how to do what you suggested. My "Systems Settings" button brings up a bouncing screwdriver and wrench but nothing opens up. It used to work fine but I clicked on the "down" arrow in the upper right corner of the window, which I thought was equivalent to MS "minimize" but apparently not. Since then, I get the screwdriver/wrench icon.

 

[TronDD]

I don't use Kubuntu or KDE, can't help you with the interface.

Can you get to a terminal?

Tim.

 

[jpete]

Yes, I can open a terminal window.

 

[TronDD]

Does typing 'dmraid -r' do anything?

If not, I think you can install it with 'sudo apt-get install dmraid'
I think...

Tim.

 

[jpete]

Does typing 'dmraid -r' do anything?

If not, I think you can install it with 'sudo apt-get dmraid'
I think...

Tim.

Well, I got my System Settings pane back. I had it minimized, but I didn't have the "widget" installed to show minimized panes This Linux is going to take some getting used to.

Here's what I got when I put "dmraid" into the terminal.

[email protected]:~$ dmraid -r
The program 'dmraid' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install dmraid
bash: dmraid: command not found
[email protected]:~$ sudo-get install dmraid
bash: sudo-get: command not found
[email protected]:~$ sudo apt-get install dmraid
[sudo] password for jeff:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
dmraid
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 188kB of archives.
After this operation, 709kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/universe dmraid 1.0.0.rc14-0ubuntu3.1 [188kB]
Fetched 188kB in 0s (199kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package dmraid.
(Reading database ... 125092 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking dmraid (from .../dmraid_1.0.0.rc14-0ubuntu3.1_amd64.deb) ...
Setting up dmraid (1.0.0.rc14-0ubuntu3.1) ...
* Setting up DMRAID devices... [ OK ]
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)

Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic
[email protected]:~$

I don't have the two SATA drives hooked up right now. I'm paranoid of the virus doing any more damage.
When I was running Linux from the CD, I was able to get to files on my IDE drive. Do you think I'll be able to copy files (my pictures) onto a DVD or CD if I power up the SATA drives?

Thanks for your help Tim.

 

[TronDD]

Are you just trying to get data off the drive or do you want to be able to use the drives in linux?

If you are just trying to rescue some files, you can boot off the linux CD, mount the hard drive that has the installed linux on it, and copy away. Then if you want, you can format the RAID drives to clean them up and try getting them working in the installed Linux.

Tim.

 

[jpete]

Are you just trying to get data off the drive or do you want to be able to use the drives in linux?

If you are just trying to rescue some files, you can boot off the linux CD, mount the hard drive that has the installed linux on it, and copy away. Then if you want, you can format the RAID drives to clean them up and try getting them working in the installed Linux.

Tim.

I'm trying to do both actually. I need at least to get my pictures off the drives, then I want to format them and use them in Linux.

Right now, I'm running on my old 80G IDE drive. If I hook up the two SATA drives, am I correct in assuming I should be able to get my pictures off of them? I need them, and maybe my e-mail contacts for myself and my wife, and possible all our "favorites" from Internet Explorer. I know there is a way to do it, but I was trying to take things one step at a time.

 

[TronDD]

Ok, in that case, I would boot off the linux CD so that you can access the RAID drives. Then mount the 80 Gig and copy as many files as you can fit on the 80 gig drive.

Before you reboot, get to a terminal and type 'mount' and save the output (pasting it here would be helpful). You need to know what linux calls the drive you have it installed on. Something like /dev/hda3 It depends on how linux partitioned it. Look for "blah on /" or possibly "on /home".

Plug in the RAID drives, boot the CD and get to a terminal.
I don't know if you know where the RAID drives will be mounted. Type 'mount' and see if you can tell from the list.
If not, you can try 'df -h' and figure it out based on the size of the drives.

If you have a web browser on the CD and the network works, paste the output of both commands.

If the 80 gig drive is not mounted, type 'mkdir /mnt/temp' then 'mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/temp' Replace /dev/hda3 with whatever you got from the mount command before rebooting.

Then you should be able to copy files from the RAID drives to the 80 gig drive. I don't know what software is on your CD, there might be cd writting software. If not, you can reboot into the linux on the hard drive and install something there. Do a google search for "KDE cd burning" or the like to find out what the stock KDE software is called, it's probably installed already.

 

[ss396boy]

virus on linux?? I would be more worried about hackers out there trying to getin ginto your system without the proper firewall on linux and deleting everything
.

 

[jpete]

Ok, in that case, I would boot off the linux CD so that you can access the RAID drives. Then mount the 80 Gig and copy as many files as you can fit on the 80 gig drive.

Before you reboot, get to a terminal and type 'mount' and save the output (pasting it here would be helpful). You need to know what linux calls the drive you have it installed on. Something like /dev/hda3 It depends on how linux partitioned it. Look for "blah on /" or possibly "on /home".
.

Here's the 80G IDE drive.

[email protected]:~$ mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)

I'll post back when I plug in the SATA drives.

 

[jpete]

Does typing 'dmraid -r' do anything?

If not, I think you can install it with 'sudo apt-get install dmraid'
I think...

Tim.

OK, I had to do the "apt-get drmaid" thing and then I did "sudo dmraid -r" and got this

[email protected]:~$ sudo dmraid -r
/dev/sdb: via, "via_ebgfdcfagb", stripe, ok, 488397167 sectors, [email protected] 0
/dev/sda: via, "via_ebgfdcfagb", stripe, ok, 488397167 sectors, [email protected] 0

I hope I didn't vaporize anything.

 

[jpete]

SOMETHING else is using Adept when I am running on the 80G drive.

I can't install GParted to partition the RAID drives. This is starting to get frustrating.

 

[jpete]

Ok, in that case, I would boot off the linux CD so that you can access the RAID drives. Then mount the 80 Gig and copy as many files as you can fit on the 80 gig drive.

Before you reboot, get to a terminal and type 'mount' and save the output (pasting it here would be helpful). You need to know what linux calls the drive you have it installed on. Something like /dev/hda3 It depends on how linux partitioned it. Look for "blah on /" or possibly "on /home".

Plug in the RAID drives, boot the CD and get to a terminal.
I don't know if you know where the RAID drives will be mounted. Type 'mount' and see if you can tell from the list.
If not, you can try 'df -h' and figure it out based on the size of the drives.

If you have a web browser on the CD and the network works, paste the output of both commands.

If the 80 gig drive is not mounted, type 'mkdir /mnt/temp' then 'mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/temp' Replace /dev/hda3 with whatever you got from the mount command before rebooting.

Then you should be able to copy files from the RAID drives to the 80 gig drive. I don't know what software is on your CD, there might be cd writting software. If not, you can reboot into the linux on the hard drive and install something there. Do a google search for "KDE cd burning" or the like to find out what the stock KDE software is called, it's probably installed already.

Here is what I get when I type "mount"

[email protected]:~$ mount
/dev/sdc1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)

 

[TronDD]

Did you install dmraid onto the hardrive or was that while booted off the CD?

If you have dmraid on the hardrive, try "dmraid -ay" and see if it mounts it.

Are you trying to reformat the drives or do you still need to get files off of them?

 

[jpete]

Did you install dmraid onto the hardrive or was that while booted off the CD?

If you have dmraid on the hardrive, try "dmraid -ay" and see if it mounts it.

Are you trying to reformat the drives or do you still need to get files off of them?

I am booting from the 80G HD.

Here's what I got using "dmraid -ay"

[email protected]:~$ sudo dmraid -ay
[sudo] password for jeff:
RAID set "via_ebgfdcfagb" already active
RAID set "via_ebgfdcfagb1" already active

I still need to get at least my pictures from the RAID drives. I'd like to get my address book from Outlook and my favorites from IE.

After that, I'd like to format the drives and install Linux on the RAID drives and use the IDE for backups.

 

[TronDD]

Ok, then forget installing GParted and partitioning the drives for now.

After dmraid -ay we have to figure out what the drives are called to the system.

Try 'ls /dev/mapper' and see if the via_ebgfdcfagb1 device is there.

If so type:
mkdir /mnt/raid
mount /dev/mapper/via_ebgfdcfagb1 /mnt/raid

You should be able to see the files in /mnt/raid if all goes well.