Could this be used to add raidxpert2 support to clonezilla? If yes, how?

[robocorpse]

To any one, I was wondering if I could some how use these drivers to make clonezilla recognize my nvme raidxpert2 raid array.

I would like to be able to back up my raid and possible migrate to a larger disk.

Any help would be appreciated! I assume I need to chose the correct flavor of driver depending on which version of clonezilla I will be working with.

I am not a frequent user of linux, so please excuse my ignorance. And I apologize if this isn't the correct method to ask this question.

[tyomikh]

1st I tried drivers from official AMD site (Downloads/Support -> Chipset/Drivers -> Chipet AM4 -> X370 -> barely noticeable Previous Drivers. It just didn't work.

Then I found this github and managed to make it work
I used Ubuntu server 22.04.1 to backup my windows OS to an image. Clonezilla didn't recognize LAN on Asus B450M. Network is required to download deb dependencies

Boot till installer starts, go to shell

apt update
apt install dkms

vi /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf
$nrconf{blacklist} = [
qr(ahci),
...
$nrconf{kernelhints} = 0;
$nrconf{ucodehints} = 0;
>> otherwise you'll get 'rcraid failed to retrieve available kernel versions' on next step

apt install ./rcraid-dkms*.deb
apt install ./rcraid+8.1.0-0*.deb

rmmod ahci
insmod $$(find /lib/modules/$(uname -r) -type f -name '*.ko' | grep rcraid)
^^ use just single $, sorry but I couldn't escape it in github comments window
lsmod | grep rcraid

dmesg -T | tail -20
dmesg -T | grep rcraid

lspci -vvv | grep RAID
01:00.1 ...
Kernel driver in use: rcraid
Kernel modules: rcraid

09:00.0 ...
Kernel driver in use: rcraid <-- before 'rmmod ahci' ahci was in use here
Kernel modules: ahci, rcraid
lsblk
>> all logical drives and partitions are now visible

UPDATE
Be carefull while writing to rcraid device. Just in case.

I had raid1 of Windows OS on SSD and raid1 of a pair of hdd. Motherboard is Asus B450M-A II. I booted and loaded rcraid.ko as described above. Then I mounted raid1 on HDD as destination and did dd backup of 1st logical disk to the 2nd logical disk.
I successfully umounted destination NTFS and said ubuntu server to shutdown. It waited for some timeouts on late stages and I pressed power off button.

After reboot Windows was OK but 2nd logical disk was completely empty! Filesystem check returned OK, still files gone. I tried GetDataBack on max Level 4 to find lost files, it took almost 2h for 1TB drives. What was strange is that utility found many phantom partitions on 2nd disk with size equal to the 1st logical disk, EFI partitions and windows recovery partition too. May be GetDataBack disk works this way with addressing and search. Or may be rcraid.ko miswrote to RAID metadata, and now my 1st disk (which I only read and didn't write to) is at risk too.

Then I tried back2Life utility and it was 10 time faster and showed more files than GetDataBack.
So backup your files first and then play with this driver!

[robocorpse]

1st I tried drivers from official AMD site (Downloads/Support -> Chipset/Drivers -> Chipet AM4 -> X370 -> barely noticeable Previous Drivers. It just didn't work.

Then I found this github and managed to make it work I used Ubuntu server 22.04.1 to backup my windows OS to an image. Clonezilla didn't recognize LAN on Asus B450M. Network is required to download deb dependencies

Boot till installer starts, go to shell

apt update apt install dkms

vi /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf $nrconf{blacklist} = [ qr(ahci), ... $nrconf{kernelhints} = 0; $nrconf{ucodehints} = 0; >> otherwise you'll get 'rcraid failed to retrieve available kernel versions' on next step

apt install ./rcraid-dkms*.deb apt install ./rcraid+8.1.0-0*.deb

rmmod ahci insmod $$(find /lib/modules/$(uname -r) -type f -name '*.ko' | grep rcraid) ^^ use just single $, sorry but I couldn't escape it in github comments window lsmod | grep rcraid

dmesg -T | tail -20 dmesg -T | grep rcraid

lspci -vvv | grep RAID 01:00.1 ... Kernel driver in use: rcraid Kernel modules: rcraid

09:00.0 ... Kernel driver in use: rcraid <-- before 'rmmod ahci' ahci was in use here Kernel modules: ahci, rcraid lsblk >> all logical drives and partitions are now visible

UPDATE Be carefull while writing to rcraid device. Just in case.

I had raid1 of Windows OS on SSD and raid1 of a pair of hdd. Motherboard is Asus B450M-A II. I booted and loaded rcraid.ko as described above. Then I mounted raid1 on HDD as destination and did dd backup of 1st logical disk to the 2nd logical disk. I successfully umounted destination NTFS and said ubuntu server to shutdown. It waited for some timeouts on late stages and I pressed power off button.

After reboot Windows was OK but 2nd logical disk was completely empty! Filesystem check returned OK, still files gone. I tried GetDataBack on max Level 4 to find lost files, it took almost 2h for 1TB drives. What was strange is that utility found many phantom partitions on 2nd disk with size equal to the 1st logical disk, EFI partitions and windows recovery partition too. May be GetDataBack disk works this way with addressing and search. Or may be rcraid.ko miswrote to RAID metadata, and now my 1st disk (which I only read and didn't write to) is at risk too.

Then I tried back2Life utility and it was 10 time faster and showed more files than GetDataBack. So backup your files first and then play with this driver!

Hey! I am looking at this and I appreciate the write up. I might need some more help figuring this out. I will try to take a look at it soon but my life is pretty busy right now. On a side note I'm trying to figure out how to update the firmware of the 980 pros that make up this raid. Unfortunately the bootable tool wont work without a ps2 keyboard (no ps2 on dark hero) and magician wont recognize it in windows because it shows up as the raid array and not discrete drives.