Linux Question answered

[themusgrat]

Hey. I am a Windows person (only for the games, mind you), and my OS is down. I am going to have to reformat, but before I do, I want to get some data off my RAID 0 drives. Since I don't know anybody with a nF4 chipset, I was thinking that I could load Linux on to another hard drive just long enough to get the data on to an external one. Willl this work, and if so, what Linux distro requires the least knowledge? Also, since this is kind of being forced upon me, I would like to keep Linux on my PC, in case stuff like this happens again, and yes, it will. So take that into consideration too. One more thing, how would I boot Windows with 2 OS's? Is there a boot choice like with 2 Windows?

P.S. I thought about putting this in Tech support, but it seemed that you guys could help a bit more.

Thanks for any help.

 

[n0cmonkey]

If you're using a real raid card there is a chance that Linux has drivers. If you're using some crap infested bios assisted software raid (like promise cards) then you're probably out of luck. That's what backups are for anyways.

You could probably install Windows to the spare drive, load the drivers, then load the raid array...

Linux has a bootloader or two (dozen). Grub is pretty easy and allows you to choose between OS installs.

 

[kamper]

I second the reccomendation of windows on your spare drive, it makes more sense if you don't know linux (and if there's driver problems).

If you can't do that for some reason, a live linux cd might be more appropriate than an installation. Last time I tried knoppix, it automatically mounted ntfs drives it found so that would save you some hassle.

I'm not trying to discourage you from installing linux, it's just that a data recovery situation is not the best time to be diving into it.

 

[imported_shader]

i will concur with what was mentioned before, but also to answer some of the other questions you had in your post.

in regard to your question "what Linux distro requires the least knowledge?" currently that would probably be ubuntu. from what i have been told it will autodetect almost everything for you (no guarantees tho).

also you may not know what a "live cd" is. a live cd is a bootable cdrom that contains a "fully-functional" OS (in this case linux). as was mentioned before, knoppix is a good choice for livecd. not only good for system recovery, this is a "safe" way to get a feel of a linux operating environment.

 

[statik213]

You might get some general ideas about fixing windows using knoppix from here: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1918259,00.asp

Don't bother installing linux onto a seperate partition. There are lots of linux live cds out there meant for this sort of thing.

 

[BlackOmen]

Linux also has software raid drivers. I don't know if this is the case anymore, but at one point, using Linux software raid offered the same performance as a dedicated card. In the eyes of many, this is a better solution than using a "crap infested bios assisted software raid (like promise cards)," as n0c so eloquently put it.

My current starter recommendation is Ubuntu.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: BlackOmen
Linux also has software raid drivers. I don't know if this is the case anymore, but at one point, using Linux software raid offered the same performance as a dedicated card. In the eyes of many, this is a better solution than using a "crap infested bios assisted software raid (like promise cards)," as n0c so eloquently put it.

I think you mean that "using Linux software raid is (as in right now) offers superior performance, stability, and reliability of any "hardware-based" solution this side of 250 dollars. Above 250 dollars it's still likely that software raid is faster, but hardware raid offers other significant advantages in terms of things like data protection, hotswappability, hotspares and such.
some benchmarks: http://spamaps.org/raidtests.php

The item offered by Nforce boards is crap. Stuff like that is supported by Linux using 'dmraid'... But unless you want to dual boot with XP then software 'md' raid is still a superior solution.

Here has a fairly comprehensive list of SATA raid cards, their support options in Linux, and weither or not they are 'real raid' or fakeraid.
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

Fakeraid, sometimes called bios-assisted raid, is like a Winmodem. The hardware aviable only provides basic functionality needed.. All the proccessing and disk control and such is done in software through softwares. You'll notice more then a few 'fakeraid' solutions mentioned along side 'high cpu load'.

Here is another FAQ that is a bit easier to follow.
http://linux-ata.org/faq-sata-raid.html

 

[Nothinman]

You could try Knoppix, there's no need to install anything to find out if you can read your data. There is something called 'dmraid' that supports a number of the "crap infested bios assisted software raid" chipsets, so there is a chance you can mount and read the volume.

 

[themusgrat]

Sweet. The live CD sounds best right now. It will recognize a USB drive, right? In the link that drag mentioned, I got the impression that I can switch the drives in the BIOS to legacy mode, and they will be seen as PATA, right? This way, the live CD would definitely recognize them. And BTW, my drives are nF4 RAID 0 drives, if that makes a difference. So what live CD should I use? Sorry I'm such a noob about this.

EDIT: Then again, loading Windows onto a spare is something I'm familiar with, so maybe I'll do that. Just for my info, could someone post a link to a good intro-to-linux guide? I'd like to learn more.

Thank you all very much.

EDIT2: The Knoppix live CD mentioned above had me in mind, so it is the most likely. Thanks again.

 

[nweaver]

1. don't change the bios
2. Use Knoppix
3. Don't use Raid0 without a disaster recovery plan


You change the drives to "legacy" mode, and it breaks the array, so you won't be able to recover data from it that way.

 

[themusgrat]

Oh, I see. Thanks. The funny thing is, the OS went down right after I ordered an external HD for backups. I'll use Knoppix.

 

[themusgrat]

Ok, so now I have downloaded Knoppix from the developer's site, and I saw a bunch of files. I assumed that the latest version was the best of the big files, but I burned it to CD, and it will not boot. So are there any of the little files I need? What am I doing wrong? I don't need to know the why, just tell me what to do. Thanks.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: themusgrat
Ok, so now I have downloaded Knoppix from the developer's site, and I saw a bunch of files. I assumed that the latest version was the best of the big files, but I burned it to CD, and it will not boot. So are there any of the little files I need? What am I doing wrong? I don't need to know the why, just tell me what to do. Thanks.

How did you burn it? If you pop in the cd in a windows machine (I'm assuming you're using one right now), do you still see one big file on the cd or a whole bunch? .iso files aren't meant to be burned the same way.

 

[themusgrat]

Yes, under Windows, I just burned the big file. How should I burn it?

 

[kamper]

An iso is a disk image which more or less represents a binary image of the entire cd (including the file system). Instead of burning it to the cd as a file, it needs to be burned straight to the cd. Lowlevel, so to speak.

How to do it depends on your tools. I know nero has an option for burning isos but I've never used it so if that's what you're using, somebody else will come along shortly to point you in the right direction. When doing this on windows, I used to use a tool called ISORecorder which basically just integrates with explorer, giving you right-click menu options for ripping cds to isos or burning iso files to a cd.

 

[themusgrat]

Sweet. It works now, many thanks.

EDIT: It says that it can't find a linux file system, or something, so I don't think that it has the RAID driver. Is there any way to upload a driver?

 

[themusgrat]

Nevermind. I'm into the OS now, but it sees the 2 RAID drives as separate, and cannot mount them, or whatever. So what driver do I need? My floppy with the chipset drivers is in, and it is the only reason that the OS sees the single drive, which I can access, but it doesn't see the RAIDS as a single HD.

 

[kamper]

You're into which OS now? Knoppix or windows? If knoppix, you've got linux drivers on the floppy?

As others have said above, it doesn't seem likely that you'll have good luck with a fake-raid chip and linux. I can't see how going with windows on the other harddrive isn't a better idea.

 

[themusgrat]

You are probably right. I got into Knoppix, but no RAID support. I'll get the stuff off the single drive, then install Windows onto it to get the RAID data.

Thanks again.

 

[Nothinman]

I got into Knoppix, but no RAID support.

That's because it's not real RAID, there's a little magic in the firmware to make it boot but once the OS starts all of the real RAID works is done in the driver. There's a tool called dmraid that might setup the software RAID to be usable under Linux, it really depends on what card you have since all of the chipsets that do software RAID do it a little bit differently.

 

[themusgrat]

I have the Silicon 3114 chipset, it seems to be by far the most common enthusiast board chipset. But I'll look it up.

 

[Nothinman]

The description of the dmraid package in Debian sid mentions "Silicon Image(tm) Medley(tm)", whatever that is.

 

[themusgrat]

I saw that, hopefully it means mostly all SilRAID contollers.

 

[Nothinman]

Depends on SII really, whether they developed their own stuff and stayed consistent or bought other people's crap and relabeled it like WiFi manufacturers.