RAID 5 - serious problem

[Jon Theil Nielsen]

2008/10/15 Nejc Skoberne <nejc at skoberne.net>

> Hello,
>
> > the drives to the other machine and try to make them online again. Do you
> > think I should try?
>
> If I were you, I would first buy/get a XXX GB SATA drive, create a
> filesystem there
> and copy all three disks block-by-block as three separate files (which will
> be
> the size of the disks). This way you'll still have the backup of your
> screwed up
> drives somewhere in case something goes even more wrong.
>
> However, I don't think your data is *physically* lost. I am almost sure
> that it
> is still on that drives, only the metadata could be fscked up. Now how to
> get the
> data back is another thing. In worst case scenario you could analyze the
> specification of the metadata format for you controller and then write a C
> program
> which would somehow put the bits together again using syscalls.
>
> Bye,
> Nejc
>
Hi again,

There are a lot of interesting statements and arguments in this thread. I am
impressed. But you have to understand that I am not a very advanced user of
FreeBSD and especially Linux. So I have to try to keep it simple. Thanks to
the low dollar course and the technological development, I think it is
reasonable for me to buy an extra disk just to try to fix my problems.
Actually, a 300 GB Raptor will do. And then I can install some Linux flavour
(which one should I prefer) to copy the contents of my "sick" disks
bit-by-bit. And then I can somehow try to bring the disks back online again.
Could you please spell it out for me, which tools I should use for that? My
board has both the Intel controller and a Marvell one. Can I just keep the
disks on the Intel one and disregard the offline status (if I understand you
right, I might lose all metadata if I try to change anything)?
AFAIK, the discussion of hardware vs. software RAID has been going on for a
very long time. And it really seems to be complicated. I recognise the
argument of having to stick with the same hardware. At the same time, it
seems at little pessimistic that a lot of people will end up with lots of
useless disks because the vendors decide to cut backward compatability. I
don't know.

Best regards,
Jon