windows 8 vs sparky

[carlo]

hi all
after a long while i've finally reinstalled windows 8 on one of my two hd, which is in raid through intel rapid storage with an msata,
while on the other hd i keep running sparky:
now i can't seem to be able to mount windows partitions: sparky says something like most probably partition are busy, windows is hybernated, or didn't shut off good
actually i've deactivated windows fast boot, and even if i reboot windows the outcome doesn't change
any clue?

[MoroS]

I've got a clue on what this is not: it's not a hibernation/fast boot issue. When those are in effect you only get a warning about an unclean shutdown for the NTFS partition (or something like that).
As for the other thing: what's the output of dmesg on your system after trying to mount the partition.?

[carlo]

what should i actually add to dmesg? i mean.. with plain dmesg it's too long for my shell to print it all

[MoroS]

You can dump the output to a file:

Code Select Expand

dmesg > dmesg.log

And either try to post the output here using the code tag ( "[ code ] ... [ /code ]" without the spaces) or upload the file to PasteBin or a similar service and post the link here.

[carlo]

here you go:
http://www.federproprietaabruzzo.it/Carlo/dmesg.log

[MoroS]

Does this also happen when you go into Windows, choose to restart it (instead of shutting down) and boot Sparky instead? Restart disables the fast start-up mechanism, so you should probable be able to mount that partition. If not then you'll probably have to add "remove_hiberfile" to the partition's mount options. Note that removing the hibernation file will cause a "cold boot" (longer boot-up) on the next Windows start-up.

[carlo]

yes it happens however i shut windows... maybe i should try to unplug the electricity?

i'll try to mount with remove hiberfile..

[carlo]

not sure what is going on...

Code Select Expand

root@stronzinux:/home/carlo# umount /dev/sda2
umount: /dev/sda2: not mounted
root@stronzinux:/home/carlo# mount -t ntfs-3g -o remove_hiberfile /dev/sda2 /mnt/C
ntfs-3g-mount: mount failed: Dispositivo o risorsa occupata
root@stronzinux:/home/carlo#

in short it says that the device or resource is busy...
the very same happens with a plane mount:

Code Select Expand

root@stronzinux:/home/carlo# mount  /dev/sda2 /mnt/C
ntfs-3g-mount: mount failed: Dispositivo o risorsa occupata


[MoroS]

yes it happens however i shut windows...

If after Windows shutdown you cannot mount the partition, but you can do it after restarting Windows (and booting directly into Sparky), then that's the fast start-up issue (which olny proves that it's not disabled).

As for the "device or resource busy" message: try checking the output of

Code Select Expand

cat /proc/mdstat and

Code Select Expand

mdadm --detail-platform
If you don't have "mdadm", then you can install the package using "apt-get install mdadm".

[carlo]

If after Windows shutdown you cannot mount the partition, but you can do it after restarting Windows (and booting directly into Sparky), then that's the fast start-up issue (which olny proves that it's not disabled).

i can reboot or shut down windows but nothing changes

here's /proc/mdstat   

Code Select Expand

root@stronzinux:/home/carlo# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities :
md126 : inactive sda[0](S)
      1620 blocks super external:imsm

md127 : inactive sdc[0](S)
      2772 blocks super external:imsm

unused devices: <none>


here's the mdadm

Code Select Expand

root@stronzinux:/home/carlo# mdadm --detail-platform
       Platform : Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager
        Version : 11.6.0.1702
    RAID Levels : raid0 raid1 raid10 raid5
    Chunk Sizes : 4k 8k 16k 32k 64k 128k
    2TB volumes : supported
      2TB disks : supported
      Max Disks : 6
    Max Volumes : 2 per array, 4 per controller
I/O Controller : /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2 (SATA)


[MoroS]

It seems that the RAID array is holding the resources. Some sources suggest deactivating or even removing it (via command line). Since you're using a RAID setup, it's rather not something that you want. Seems you've got two arrays active: md126 (sda disk) and md127 (sdc disk). Which of those hosts the Windows installation and which hosts the Sparky installation?

[carlo]

sda - windows
sdb - linux
sdc - is the msata which should cooperate in raid with windows

[MoroS]

sda - windows
sdb - linux
sdc - is the msata which should cooperate in raid with windows

And what RAID is it? 0, 1? Something else? Most probably it's a software/Windows-managed RAID setup, that Linux knows nothing about. It sees the entities, keeps them reserved, but doesn't know their paired with each other. If it's RAID 0, then you won't be able to read it without setting up the RAID config in Linux. If it's RAID 1, then you don't want to modify those partitions separately. To tell the truth I don't think that anyone here knows exactly how to setup RAID in Linux. Configs like that aren't too popular.

Before I try to do anything else with it, what does this command output:

Code Select Expand

cat /proc/mounts

[carlo]

here are a couple of screenshots i've taken during boot: i guess it's raid 0



odd thing is that before i have formatted linux and windows, with the same configuration it was working finely (always windows 8.1 and sparky), here's the /etc/fstab (it's my old fstab, but i've had to add the #):

Code Select Expand

$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>

proc    /proc   proc    defaults        0       0
# /dev/sdb1
UUID=d3025516-03fd-4073-8404-f1fa53a6d427       /       ext4    rw,errors=remount-ro    0       1
# /dev/sdb2
UUID=26821aff-2ba7-4e4e-89cf-272fe12c970f       /home   ext4    rw,errors=remount-ro    0       0
# /dev/sdb3
UUID=4633d6d6-9c7f-4116-8b96-0bfbb9f14689       swap    swap    sw      0      0
# /dev/sdb4
UUID=B60B-93CD  /boot/efi       vfat    defaults        0       0
#/dev/sda1
#/dev/sda1      /mnt/C          ntfs-3g defaults        0       0
#/dev/sda2      /mnt/D          ntfs-3g defaults        0       0


[MoroS]

Ok. Now I know what is it... You have the main WD disk with a SSD cache made with a RAID0 setup using Intel's RST. It's quite an exotic configuration, that's supposed to emulate a hybrid HDD, but that's a starting point to get it handled properly under Linux. I don't have any experience with that kind of setup, but let's try something. Go into the /dev folder and see if you have any devices starting with md (like /dev/md0, /dev/md1). If so, what names do they have?