[SOLVED] Windows Dynamic Disk support?

bisam · 2013-01-20 16:27:20

Hi everyone,

My question is, if it anyone knows how it is possible to mount Windows spanned drives, so I have access to the Windows data under Arch?

I am using Arch / Windows 8 dual boot with 3 drives. One SSD where the base systems are installed, and two 1TB HDDs, which I mirrored under Arch (2x700GB). I then spanned the remaining free space of the 2 drives to one dynamic disk under Windows 8.

I am also a bit confused, because of the different output of fdisk -l and lsblk -f, as the /var and raid partitions are not visible in the fdisk output and also the recognized filesystems are different? Is there a reason for that?

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3ef29ee4

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1              63  1953523119   976761528+  42  SFS
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.

Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x26b87542

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1              63  1953523119   976761528+  42  SFS

Disk /dev/md127: 751.5 GB, 751484862464 bytes, 1467743872 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

lsblk -f

sdb                                                                           
├─sdb1    linux_raid_member archiso:root 8f0e50b9-5f67-6957-6429-9a74a20600b5 
│ └─md127 ext4                           7099366d-3527-47fa-9a46-2c261edf1eb8 /home
├─sdb2    ext4                           dc38fca1-d656-425d-bee6-7cd40e0c06a6 /var
└─sdb3                                                                        
sdc                                                                           
├─sdc1    linux_raid_member archiso:root 8f0e50b9-5f67-6957-6429-9a74a20600b5 
│ └─md127 ext4                           7099366d-3527-47fa-9a46-2c261edf1eb8 /home
└─sdc2    ntfs              Volume       320EE7040EE6C049

Last edited by bisam (2013-01-21 15:06:35)

Lone_Wolf · 2013-01-21 12:24:10

Afaik windows dynamic discs are only usable on windows ( XP Pro, vista , W7, W8 and Windows server 2000 SP4 and later server versions)

If you really want to use dynamic discs under linux, the easiest way is to setup a windows VM.

bisam · 2013-01-21 12:42:27

Hmm, is this for sure? Because I read that some people managed to do it.

I followed this ubuntu how-to http://bigli.ch/howto-access-windows-sp … th-ubuntu/ and after it didn't work, I tried it with mdadm (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=833653):

mdadm --build -l 0 -n 2 -c 64 /dev/md128 /dev/sdb3 /dev/sdc2

Anyhow, both ways let me create a Volume but I am not able to mount it.

EDIT: I got 2 different error messages, when I am trying to mount it:

#1

# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/md128 /media/Win8Volume/
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/md128': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/md128' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?

#2 ( after rebuilding the array with switched devices)

# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/md128 /media/Win8Volume/
ntfs_mst_post_read_fixup_warn: magic: 0x61592c70  size: 1024   usa_ofs: 50934  usa_count: 14904: Invalid argument
Record 0 has no FILE magic (0x61592c70)
Failed to load $MFT: Input/output error
Failed to mount '/dev/md128': Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.

Last edited by bisam (2013-01-21 13:05:11)

bisam · 2013-01-21 12:50:56

Haha, I didn't realize what I was typing, it seems like I tried to build a raid0 array. Is there a difference between spanned drives, and a raid0 setup?

Lone_Wolf · 2013-01-21 14:43:39

I've read the blog and your first post, and it seems i misunderstood.
Windows has a special option to format drives as a dynamic disk, this disk then uses a structure without an MBR/partition table and is windows-only.

Spanned Disks does use standard MBR/partition table .
The blog post commands/setup mentioned suggests spanned disks are just a concatenation of 2 volumes.

You said you tried following the blogpost but it didn't work.
What errors did you get ?

bisam · 2013-01-21 15:05:45

OK, I solved it. I mixed up raid0 and spanning >_< but it worked perfectly with the --level=linear flag...

mdadm --build --verbose /dev/md0 --chunk=64 --level=linear --raid-devices=2 /dev/sdc2 /dev/sdb3

Anyway, thanks a lot Lone_Wolf

Arch Linux

#1 2013-01-20 16:27:20

[SOLVED] Windows Dynamic Disk support?

#2 2013-01-21 12:24:10

Re: [SOLVED] Windows Dynamic Disk support?

#3 2013-01-21 12:42:27

Re: [SOLVED] Windows Dynamic Disk support?

#4 2013-01-21 12:50:56

Re: [SOLVED] Windows Dynamic Disk support?

#5 2013-01-21 14:43:39

Re: [SOLVED] Windows Dynamic Disk support?

#6 2013-01-21 15:05:45

Re: [SOLVED] Windows Dynamic Disk support?

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