[arch-general] Can you rebuild an nv dmraid array in linux - or is it just gparted and copy partitions?

[Baho Utot]

David C. Rankin wrote:
> Listmates
>
> I had a failing drive in my arch server so I installed a new one. The bios raid
> 'nvidia dmraid' provides the feature to 'Rebuild' the array and allows for
> adding the new disk to the array. After that configuration you are prompted to
> "Boot to an OS that supports rebuilding.." (or something very close to that).
>
> I image that there is some windows utility that does the rebuild on boot.
> Something probably on one of the cd's that came with the motherboard.
>
> The motherboard is an MSI K9N2 SLI Platinum (MS-7374) and has the nvidia dmraid
> 0/1/5/ chipset.
>
> In the past I have always just used gparted to copy partitions from good drive
> -> new drive and created a new array. Based on the output of creating the array
> in the bios, I'm curious if I can just rebuild does it work in linux? how?
>   
This is not an answer to your question directly...

I have hardware raid on my desktop but I use software raid,  raid5 and 
raid 1 arrays using mdadm.

The reason I don't use the on board raid or a hardware raid is that the 
different manufactures use different methods causing problems when you 
want move the array to another system or the raid card fails.  Then you 
usally lose the entire raid array. 

With software raid you can move the raid to another system and it uses 
whatever stat hardware that is in the system.. ie lose the stata card 
just install another one and you are good.

To replace a failed drive with software raid all that needs to be done 
is to fail the drive using mdadm then physical remove and replace the 
drive.  Then use sfdisk to copy the partition setup from one of the 
drives in the raid to the new drive.  After the partitioning is complete 
add the drive to the array using mdadm and your done.  All that you need 
to do is to monitor the rebuilding by a simple cat /proc/mdstat.