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From: David Brown on 4 May 2010 17:32
Robbie Hatley wrote:
>
> On 2010-05-04 12:16 PM, David Brown wrote:
>
>> ... got an extra disk handy, such as a USB hard disk?
>
> Yep. Huge firewire external hard disk.
>
>> Boot from a live CD
>
> I'm not familiar with the terminology "live CD". You mean a bootable
> Linux CD, with some part of the Linux OS's functionality on it?
>
>> make a partition on the USB disk that is slightly bigger than
>> than the original raided partition, and use "dd" to copy the raw ext
>> partition from the raid device onto the USB disk partition. If the
>> original raid was level 0, then you need to use the live CD's
>> partitioning tools to shrink the copied partition to a suitable size
>> (aim for slightly under the size of the software raid physical
>> partition). Delete your raid partitions, make a new clean partition on
>> disk 1, and use dd to copy the raw ext partition back to it. Run a
>> resize to re-fit it exactly to the partition.
>
> Ok, all that I can do pretty easily (provided I can find out what
> a "live CD" is and how to acquire or make one). I can use
> PowerQuest PartitionMagic (my partition manager of choice) to
> handle all the repartitioning. (That's how I made the triple booting
> system in the first place.) And this "DD" you mention to copy stuff.
>
> Saying I did that, how do I set up Linux to look for / on the new
> EXT2 partition instead of the old RAID array? It must involve
> changing something in /boot to look for / on device hda6 or whatever
> the new EXT2 partition is going to be. But I don't know where that
> setting is.
>

I'm inclined to agree with some of the other posters here - what I'm
suggesting is pretty advanced partition manipulation, and I've only
given very rough instructions. If you don't know what a "live cd" is,
don't know "dd", and don't know how to change the kernel command line
parameters for your boot loader, then I would not recommend messing with
this stuff - at least not on a machine you clearly do not want to risk
trashing.

What's wrong with simply using your external hard disk for your shared
partition? Both Linux and Windows should be able to use it happily, and
you can make a FAT32 partition there? It's perhaps not as elegant a
solution as using the internal disk, but it's a lot less risky.
From: Robbie Hatley on 4 May 2010 17:58

J G Miller spumed:

> ... you need to get somebody who actually has some understanding
> of administering Unix/Linux systems to look after your machine
> because you are indicating that you really do not have a clue...
> ...
> Again you are proving that you do not have a clue at all about
> administering a Unix/Linux system.
> Do not touch anything and get somebody capable to do the work.
> ...
> Get somebody who knows what to set up SAMBA on this machine.
> Transfer all of your data files from the Linux RAID file system
> over to a Windoze machine via the local network.
> ...
> Since you indicated that you are going to use the current RAID
> file system for Windoze, thereby making it an entirely Windoze
> machine, you obviously do not care about the Red Hat Linux 9
> operating system files.

This kind of vomit is as helpful as a blunt axe to the head,
and about as welcome.

Thunderbird
Message filters
usenet server
miller(a)yoyo.org
If "From" contains "miller(a)yoyo.org", delete message.

Exit TB, erase msf file, restart TB, re-DL headers.
(Yup, clumsy, but TB is buggy. No direct DLed-header-delete,
and Usenet filters can't be "applied" to already-DLed headers.
But there's always workarounds. Well, almost always.)

--
Cheers,
Robbie Hatley
perl -le 'print "\154o\156e\167o\154f\100w\145ll\56c\157m"'
perl -le 'print "\150ttp\72//\167ww.\167ell.\143om/~\154onewolf/"'
From: Robbie Hatley on 4 May 2010 20:02

Ok, continuing this conversation from KNode in Linux......

Robert Heller wrote (in an earlier message):

> # assumung disk 2 is /dev/hdb

Yes.

> (which would actually be bad for RAID over # IDE)

Why so? Seems to me that having both halves of array on hda would be worse.

> and 'slice 6' == partition #6:

On looking in "Hardware Browser" I see that hda6 is "swap".
My software RAID components are hda7 and hdb6, each 10001MB.

> # fail it
> mdadm -f /dev/md0 /dev/hdb6
> # then remove it
> mdadm -r /dev/md0 /dev/hdb6
>
> /dev/md0 is now a mirror set with only one disk (not real meaningful,
> but so what).
>
> I *think* you can just change the parition type to plain Linux (83) and
> mount it as ext2.

Alas, but mdadm seems not to exist on this machine. I get:

[root(a)localhost root]# mdadm --help
bash: mdadm: command not found
[root(a)localhost root]#

I have looked in the Red Hat 9 documentation before for methods to
administer software RAID (fail/remove/add devices, revert from RAID
to non-RAID, etc), but the only things I could find were about how to
*install* software RAID, not how to *administer* it.

Any ideas of what Red Hat 9 is using to administer RAID, if not mdadm?
(I know very little about the various Linux low-level system tools.)

> IDE, esp. older IDE is slow. Also, writing to a IDE CDR/DVDR that is on
> the *same* channel as the source ISO is not going to be fast (and prone
> to buffer underruns). IDE cannot do I/O from the master and slave on a
> given channel *at the same time*. If you have an IDE CD/DVD writer,
> you don't want to burn ISOs from a hard drive on the same channel.

Ah, OK. I wasn't really aware of that. Thanks for the info.

However, I usually use the CD on CH2 to burn stuff on CH1, but it's still
slow.

I even took two of my hard disks out of the system, and tested my system
with just the disk containing Windows drive C: on Primary Master, and the
CD on Secondary Master. But CD writing was still dead slow. Advertised
write: 50x. Actual write: 6x. So I dunno what's going on there.

> Note further: if you are doing RAID over IDE hard drives, you don't
> want the (two) drives on the same channel. Given that you are doing
> RAID over IDE AND have an IDE CD/DVD writer, you are pretty much
> screwed no matter what you do. Either both RAID disks are on one
> channel and the CD/DVD writer is on the other: bad for your RAID array
> (write performance will suck big time) OR you end up with one of the
> disks on the same channel as the CD/DVD writer: bad for burning.

Well, I'm trying to dismantle the software RAID-1 array, which should
make everything slightly faster when running in Linux mode. (In Windows
mode, the RAID array doesn't even exist; as far as Windows is concerned,
it's just a couple of partitions with unknown file format, and is ignored.)

I fear that my CD/DVD drive will never be fast. That's sort-of OK, though,
as long as it works.

> The other issue is this: is your processor a 686 or a 586? After RH9,
> RedHat dropped support for 586 (and lower) processors -- the install
> kernel is a 686 kernel. The CentOS 4 installer and distro *does*
> include 586 kernels. The current version of FC might not have a 586
> kernel. It *sounds* like you might have an older pre-PII (or
> Pentium-Pro) processor. All current model processors are 686 (or
> x86_64). AMD's K6's are *586* processors as are anything from Intel
> before the Pentium-Pro and PII.

I'm currently running AMD Athlon XP 3000 Barton Core. Not sure if that's
equiv. to 586 or 686. (I take it you're talking about instruction sets?)
It's one of the most advanced 32-bit CPUs AMD put out before the 64-bit
CPUs and MBs started to gain popularity. Not state-of-art anymore, but
still reasonably fast. I suppose that might be what Fedora is balking at.
CentOS sounding like good option at this point.

But first, I'd like to find if there's some tool on here to administer
software RAID. Since mdadm isn't installed, I'm guessing it's something
else, but I dunno what. Any ideas?

--
Cheers,
Robbie Hatley
lone wolf [at] well [dot] com

From: Robert Heller on 4 May 2010 20:26
At Tue, 04 May 2010 17:02:19 -0700 Robbie Hatley <see.my.signature(a)for.my.address> wrote:

>
>
> Ok, continuing this conversation from KNode in Linux......
>
> Robert Heller wrote (in an earlier message):
>
> > # assumung disk 2 is /dev/hdb
>
> Yes.
>
> > (which would actually be bad for RAID over # IDE)
>
> Why so? Seems to me that having both halves of array on hda would be worse.

Yes, two partitions of a single disk would be worse. Using two disks on
the *same* IDE channel is almost as bad though (explained below).

>
> > and 'slice 6' == partition #6:
>
> On looking in "Hardware Browser" I see that hda6 is "swap".
> My software RAID components are hda7 and hdb6, each 10001MB.
>
> > # fail it
> > mdadm -f /dev/md0 /dev/hdb6
> > # then remove it
> > mdadm -r /dev/md0 /dev/hdb6
> >
> > /dev/md0 is now a mirror set with only one disk (not real meaningful,
> > but so what).
> >
> > I *think* you can just change the parition type to plain Linux (83) and
> > mount it as ext2.
>
> Alas, but mdadm seems not to exist on this machine. I get:
>
> [root(a)localhost root]# mdadm --help
> bash: mdadm: command not found
> [root(a)localhost root]#
>
> I have looked in the Red Hat 9 documentation before for methods to
> administer software RAID (fail/remove/add devices, revert from RAID
> to non-RAID, etc), but the only things I could find were about how to
> *install* software RAID, not how to *administer* it.
>
> Any ideas of what Red Hat 9 is using to administer RAID, if not mdadm?
> (I know very little about the various Linux low-level system tools.)
>
> > IDE, esp. older IDE is slow. Also, writing to a IDE CDR/DVDR that is on
> > the *same* channel as the source ISO is not going to be fast (and prone
> > to buffer underruns). IDE cannot do I/O from the master and slave on a
> > given channel *at the same time*. If you have an IDE CD/DVD writer,
> > you don't want to burn ISOs from a hard drive on the same channel.
>
> Ah, OK. I wasn't really aware of that. Thanks for the info.
>
> However, I usually use the CD on CH2 to burn stuff on CH1, but it's still
> slow.

Note: with both halves of the RAID set on the same channel, your disk
I/O performance is going to seriously suck.

>
> I even took two of my hard disks out of the system, and tested my system
> with just the disk containing Windows drive C: on Primary Master, and the
> CD on Secondary Master. But CD writing was still dead slow. Advertised
> write: 50x. Actual write: 6x. So I dunno what's going on there.

Your motherboard might not support DMA or DMA is not enabled in the BIOS
-- you might just have an old enough board that only has parallel port
IDE I/O only.


>
> > Note further: if you are doing RAID over IDE hard drives, you don't
> > want the (two) drives on the same channel. Given that you are doing
> > RAID over IDE AND have an IDE CD/DVD writer, you are pretty much
> > screwed no matter what you do. Either both RAID disks are on one
> > channel and the CD/DVD writer is on the other: bad for your RAID array
> > (write performance will suck big time) OR you end up with one of the
> > disks on the same channel as the CD/DVD writer: bad for burning.
>
> Well, I'm trying to dismantle the software RAID-1 array, which should
> make everything slightly faster when running in Linux mode. (In Windows
> mode, the RAID array doesn't even exist; as far as Windows is concerned,
> it's just a couple of partitions with unknown file format, and is ignored.)
>
> I fear that my CD/DVD drive will never be fast. That's sort-of OK, though,
> as long as it works.
>
> > The other issue is this: is your processor a 686 or a 586? After RH9,
> > RedHat dropped support for 586 (and lower) processors -- the install
> > kernel is a 686 kernel. The CentOS 4 installer and distro *does*
> > include 586 kernels. The current version of FC might not have a 586
> > kernel. It *sounds* like you might have an older pre-PII (or
> > Pentium-Pro) processor. All current model processors are 686 (or
> > x86_64). AMD's K6's are *586* processors as are anything from Intel
> > before the Pentium-Pro and PII.
>
> I'm currently running AMD Athlon XP 3000 Barton Core. Not sure if that's
> equiv. to 586 or 686. (I take it you're talking about instruction sets?)
> It's one of the most advanced 32-bit CPUs AMD put out before the 64-bit
> CPUs and MBs started to gain popularity. Not state-of-art anymore, but
> still reasonably fast. I suppose that might be what Fedora is balking at.
> CentOS sounding like good option at this point.

Is this a socket-7 processor?

>
> But first, I'd like to find if there's some tool on here to administer
> software RAID. Since mdadm isn't installed, I'm guessing it's something
> else, but I dunno what. Any ideas?

It might be dmraid, although that is really for 'semi' software (mostly
cheap SATA motherboard 'RAID' controllers).



--
Robert Heller -- Get the Deepwoods Software FireFox Toolbar!
Deepwoods Software -- Linux Installation and Administration
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Web Hosting, with CGI and Database
heller(a)deepsoft.com -- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk


From: David Brown on 5 May 2010 03:22
On 04/05/2010 21:41, Robbie Hatley wrote:
> On 2010-05-04 12:05 PM, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
>> First of all, whatever you do, copy _everything_ to backup and check
>> that the backup is correct and complete. That way, if you screw up, you
>> can get back to the starting point. For my system, I might use a
>> combination of find and cpio to write the stuff to magnetic tape, but
>> what you do depends on what your backup media are.
>>
>> Then I would zap the hard drives completely and then partition them as
>> you wish. I would do it with the Linux installation disk(s). I would not
>> bother to install Linux then.
>>
>> Next, I would install MSDOS and check that it is working.
>>
>> Then I would install your Windows and check that it is working.
>>
>> Then I would install Linux and check that it is working.
>>
>> Then I would restore what you need from the backups.
>
> Literally years of work. Not practical.
>

"literally years of work" - really? A re-install is certainly work, but
not /that/ much, surely.

Having read through this thread, and heard your description of your
machine and its problems, I can't help thinking you'd be better off
starting with a new computer. You could probably get a perfectly usable
machine at your local supermarket for $400, or for less from ebay, and
it would be much faster, have much more disk space, and have a faster
cd/dvd burner. Then you could install a modern Linux distro to learn
with and play with.

There are good reasons for keeping an old installation if it is a
working system that you need and use - I too have a perfectly usable
Win2000 machine at home (with a slower processor than yours). But there
is no reason to keep such an old Red Hat installation if you don't
actually have anything of interest in it - learning will be a lot more
fun on a faster machine and with a newer distro.


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