BIOS RAID

Getting this error trying to install a new OS over an old hard drive?


Disk contains BIOS metadata, but is not part of any recognized BIOS RAID sets. Ignoring disk sda


dmraid -r -E /dev/sda

Offline uncorrectable sectors

So my task was to figure out what's wrong with a server on a remote site that is still running but no longer accepting file transfer...hmm.

Device: /dev/sda, 1 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors

Offline uncorrectable sectors

Here is temp fix to get it going while planning to replace the drive.

1. smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda

Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 2703 1113543272

2. fdisk -lu /dev/sda

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

/dev/sda1   *          63      208844      104391   83  Linux

/dev/sda2          208845  1953520064   976655610   8e  Linux LVM

Of course, it has to be /dev/sda2 since the LBA_of_first_error number is within the block range of sda2

Look for Start block # (208845  in my case)

Use this formular:  ((1113543272-208845)*512)/4096=139166803

3. dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 bs=4096 count=1 seek=139166803

My /dev/sda2 is a LVM drive so I use the mapper volume above. I assume that /dev/sda2 will still work. 

Clonezilla Kernel Panic

Clonezilla is nice and all but once in a while, RAID controller differences can make it difficult to boot up the cloned machine. I get kernel panic and the quick fix is to regenerate initrd.

- Use rescue disk
- chroot /home/partimage
- go to /boot
- mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-92.el5.img 2.6.18-53.el5PAE (of course, use your kernel version).
- grub-install --recheck /dev/sda (assuming it's sda).


That's it. Reboot and you should be able to boot to your cloned machine.

Remove oldest recovery point from DPM

We have Exchange, Sharepoint, and MSSQL in house too, you know?

Today, one of our recovery point partition ran out of space. Normally, I would just log in and increase the disk size. Well, no more space to increase today.  I looked and there was no way to delete the oldest recovery point from the GUI...wtf?

DPM Management Shell to the rescue.

$pg=get-protectiongroup -dpmserver server01 #type $pg after this command to see result

$ds=get-datasource -protectiongroup $pg[0] #0 is for the first group from the result of $pg

$rp=get-recoverypoint -datasource $ds #type $rp after this command to see result
remove-recoverypoint $rp[0] #0 is for the oldest recoverypoint from the result of $rp

Not pretty, but it solved my problem.