I am not an experienced Linux or Ubuntu user. I do have many years of software/hardware tech support experience. A customer brought in a DOA Dell Precision 670 Workstation that was set up as a web server that had been held hostage at a "Repair Shop" for over 6 months. It has a RAID 1 Mirror using the on board Dell SATA RAID controller for the OS volume which WILL boot up. It also has an add on Syba SD-SATA-4P PCI-E RAID card. There are 4-1.8 TB SATA Drives installed in the drive cage. Here is my problem....the person that built this box has disappeared which has made me SOL since this box arrived. I have no way of knowing was this a hardware or software RAID 5 config. The motherboard in this box had blown capacitors, no memory, and the 4 SATA drives which obviously were once connected to the Syba card were disconnected.
Linux - Ubuntu Server Version 12.04.3 LTS
I replaced the MB and memory and got the system to boot to linux. Once booted it says it can't find /var which is obviously supposed to be on RAID 5 volume. I found a cryptic legend scribbled inside the chassis indicating drive 0,1,2,3 connections to Syba card. I have connected the cables accordingly but the volume is still not found. The Syba doesn't show any specific RAID settings. Looks like default SATA settings to me.
The one other thing I have is a config sheet that says it is a 4x1.8 TB RAID 5: 3x1.8 TB /var with 1.8 TB spare. Is there a utility I can run to "peek" at the settings on the drives? Will it tell me that the drives are configged as linux software RAID 5?
Do I have to have a syba driver loaded to see the drives?
I booted a gpart disk and all i see is 1 Logical OS drive RAID1 and the other 4 HD's.
I am very leary to continue further without some guidance.
Any help would be appreciated.
TIA - Brian
here are my results. sorry, I posted that as an answer..
sudo parted -1
unable to mkdir /var/lib/sudo: no such file or directory
sudo blkid /dev/sda3:
uuid="0736942d.......................uuid_sub........label="gray2" type=linux_ raid_member
/dev/sda5: uuid="eodf5de1.......................uuid_sub........label="file1:125" type=linux_ raid_member
/dev/sdb3: uuid="0736942d.......................uuid_sub........label="gray2" type=linux_ raid_member
/dev/sdb5: uuid="eodf5de1.......................uuid_sub........label="file1:125" type=linux_ raid_member
/dev/md2: uuid="66ba53ca.........type="swap"
/dev/md125: label="Root" uuid="f02218b5.................type="ext4"
I guess what I see is sda3 and sda5 are partitions on drive 0 on board controller and...................sdb3 and sdb5 are partitions on drive 1 on board controller which should actually be mirrored RAID 1
md2 is a spare drive or swap file for RAID 5 and md125 or ext4 is the RAID 5 logical volume?? Does this mean that it is indeed linux software RAID 5 or is it looking for that volume?? And most important.... Is it recoverable?
sudo parted -l
andsudo blkid
and adding the output to your question.