CentOS 7 / 8 cannot boot with with mdadm RAID array solution

This article about migrating to a CentOS 7 /8 RAID mdadm array has a lot of info but I wanted to focus specifically on what newer versions of CentOS 7 require to boot mdadm and what changes are necessary on CentOS 7.8+ CentOS 7 / 8 mdadm RAID booting requirements This assumes you are chrooting into an existing install or using it to get a new deployment ready. However, these steps can........

md mdadm array inactive how to start and activate the RAID array

cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid1] [raid10] [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] md124 : inactive sdj1[0](S) 1048512 blocks Solution, we "run" the array sudo mdadm --manage /dev/md124 --run mdadm: started array /dev/md/0_0........

mdadm how to stop a check

Is a mdadm check on your trusty software RAID array happening at the worst time and slowing down your server or NAS? cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid1] [raid10] md127 : active raid10 sdb4[0] sda4[1] 897500672 blocks super 1.2 2 near-copies [2/2] [UU] [==========>..........] check = 50.4% (452485504/897500672) finish=15500.3min speed=478K/sec ........

mdadm: super0.90 cannot open /dev/sdb1: Device or resource busy mdadm: /dev/sdb1 is not suitable for this array.

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level 1 --raid-devices 2 /dev/sdb1 missing --metadata=0.90 mdadm: super0.90 cannot open /dev/sdb1: Device or resource busy mdadm: /dev/sdb1 is not suitable for this array. mdadm: create aborted Sometimes running "partprobe" can fix this. Other times it requires a reboot. One other manual thing that can be done is the following to fix it (if dm is using and blocking it):........

CentOS 8 how to convert to a bootable mdadm RAID software array

The cool thing here is that we only need 1 drive to make a RAID 10 or RAID 1 array, we just tell the Linux mdadm utility that the other drive is "missing" and we can then add our original drive to the array after booting into our new RAID array. Step#1 Install tools we need yum -y install mdadm rsync Step #2 Create your partitions on the drive that will be our RAID array Here I assume it is /dev........

mdadm force resync when resync=PENDING solution

cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid10] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] md127 : active (auto-read-only) raid10 sdc1[0] sdb1[2] 1953382400 blocks super 1.2 512K chunks 2 far-copies [2/1] [U_] resync=PENDING bitmap: 15/15 pages [60KB], 65536KB chunk Solution force repai........

mdadm: add new device failed for /dev/sdb4 as 3: Invalid argument solution

mdadm --manage /dev/md125 -a /dev/sdb4 mdadm: add new device failed for /dev/sdb4 as 3: Invalid argument Dec 19 01:23:48 storageboxtest kernel: [ 2328.854491] md: sdb4 does not have a valid v1.2 superblock, not importing! Dec 19 01:23:48 storageboxtest kernel: [ 2328.854499] md: md_import_device returned -22 #zero the superblock and try again! mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdb4 mdadm --ma........

mdadm how to stop or start a check

It's fairly simple to start or stop a check but I do wish mdadm's command had this built in. Sometimes it will do a check at the worst time causing the server to crawl to a halt. Stop check on md126: echo idle > /sys/block/md126/md/sync_action Start check on md126: echo check > /sys/block/md126/md/sync_action ........

mdadm how to mount inactive array

myguy@devbox:~$ sudo mdadm -As myguy@devbox:~$ cat /proc/mdstat |grep sdf md125 : inactive sdf3[2](S) sudo mdadm --manage /dev/md125 --run mdadm: started /dev/md125 ........

How to find and mount mdadm arrays automatically

A great way if you have a bunch of drives and mdadm connected and are looking for backups/archives and don't know what is where! for md in `cat /proc/mdstat|grep md[0-99]|awk '{print $1}'`; do mkdir /mnt/$md; mount /dev/$md /mnt/$md; done........

Migrate Centos 7 from Single HDD to mdadm RAID 10 array:

Done on Centos 7.3 very important as clearly based on older guides it was a lot easier and more simpler! Hint do not use grub2-install! If you have trouble booting after this check this CentOS mdadm RAID booting/fixing guide. One huge caveat if you are an oldschool user or sysadmin who has avoided UEFIbooting The nor........

What happens when you unplug 1 or more devices from an mdadm RAID array to simulate a failure in Linux Ubuntu/Centos/Debian?

In short the two drives in the array were /dev/sdd and /dev/sde. The kernel sees they were unplugged and have gone down as you can see below. mdadm caught the first one being unplugged /dev/sde and disabled the missing drive. However when the final drive that was part of the array is unplugged it didn't notice at all. Instead it complains about an IO error later for drives that the kernel knows do not exist anymore. [45817.162728] ata4: exception........

Migrating from Linux Mint 17.2 mdadm RAID array to a new one (because I upgraded to larger drives).

1.) Replicate the number of partitions in your new drives. gdisk /dev/sda gdisk /dev/sdb I created 3 partitions of the same same size. partition #1: +1G (/boot) partition #2: +60G (swap) partition #3: rest of it (/) #note if you are using GPT/gdisk you need to create separate a partition at least 1MB in size (in my case I would a 4th partition and mark it type ef02).........

mdadm: CREATE group disk not found Incrementally started RAID arrays. Incrementally starting RAID arrays...

mdadm won't boot in Ubuntu/Mint/Debian anymore. You just get the following in a loop: mdadm: CREATE group disk not found Incrementally started RAID arrays. Incrementally starting RAID arrays... mdadm: CREATE group disk not found Incrementally started RAID arrays. Incrementally starting RAID arrays... mdadm: CREATE group disk not found Incrementally started RAID arrays. Incrementally starting RAID arrays... mdadm: CREATE group dis........

mdadm how to recover from failed drive

Remove the failed partition /dev/sde1 mdadm --manage /dev/md99 -r /dev/sde1 mdadm: hot removed /dev/sde1 from /dev/md99 Now add another drive back to replace it: # mdadm --manage /dev/md99 -a /dev/sdf1 mdadm: added /dev/sdf1 A "cat /proc/mdstat" should show it resyncing if all is well.........

mdadm and lvm how to completely disable and remove vg/pv/lv

In short the solution is just to use vgremove for the actual /dev/mapper device: vgremove /dev/mapper/backups-backuplv box mnt # mdadm --manage /dev/md8 --stop mdadm: Cannot get exclusive access to /dev/md8:Perhaps a running process, mounted filesystem or active volume group? box mnt # lv lvchange lvconvert lvcreate l........

mdadm frozen and doesn't realize array is dead/missing failed due to unplugged drives

This was a surprising bug but I unplugged all drives for an array md127. At first it was just 1 drive and mdadm seemed to notice this. I unplugged the second drive taking the array offline but mdadm did not realize it was offline and still showed a non-existent disk as being part of it. This created problems trying to unmount it or even to stop this array with mdadm freezing. As for how to fix it I can only think of making sure you are not in a mounted path of........

mdadm how to make inactive array active

This happens when you assemble array it doesn't mean it will be active for many reasons: md20 : inactive sdf1[2](S) 732442488 blocks super 1.2 Solution: sudo mdadm --manage /dev/md20 --run........

ADATA SU800 256GB 3D NAND Flash SSD Test & Review

I keep reading these drives are slower, but they are cheap and still SSDand work very fast for my needs. As you can see the sequential read is 481-491MB/s, if I put them in MDADM RAID10 mode (normal RAID1) they should give me well over 900MB/s and with redundancy and being very cheap for what they offer. [1232206.315622] scsi 8:0:1:0: Direct-Access ATA ADATA SU800&........

mdadm kernel panic if trying to change --layout on a RAID10

It is already known this is not possible mdadm --create /dev/md3 --level 10 --layout=f2 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1 mdadm: /dev/sdc1 appears to be part of a raid array: level=raid10 devices=2 ctime=Sat Dec 24 18:44:29 2016 mdadm: /dev/sdd1 appears to be part of a raid array: level=raid10 devices=2 ctime=Sat Dec 24 18:44:29 2016 Continue creating ar........

mdadm mirrored RAID1 performance using RAID10 -f2 (Far Layout) is the solution

The only way I've found in mdadm to make 2 drives perform like a proper RAID 1 (eg. the read speed should be 2x that of a single drive) is to use the --layout=f2 (far 2). mdadm raid10 performance issues. Be very aware that mdadm seems to default to layout=n2 (which means near). In this scenario it means it is like mdadm RAID 1 performance (you get maximum read speeds of a single drive). dd if=/dev/md126 of=/dev/null bs=1M cou........

mdadm change wrong device name md127 fix and solution in Linux

md127 issue, it should be /dev/md3 per mdadm.conf Any time something is mounted as md127 it almost always means there is no entry for this mdadm array in the mdadm.conf in initramfs (which is separate from your actual /etc/mdadm.conf). cat /etc/mdadm.conf ARRAY /dev/md3 metadata=1.2 UUID=b6722845:381cc94e:7a2c5b5f:8e3b7c4f The reason for this is something strange, most Linux OS's bizarrely always keep their own copy of /etc/mdadm.con........

How to completely remove mdadm array

First you have to stop it. mdadm --stop /dev/md0 Then you can remove it: mdadm --remove /dev/md0........

mdadm zero-superblock to solve md device created on root device

It is possible to tell mdadm to create an md device on a raw disk even though it will give you an error, it writes a superblock and this corrupts the partition table which can result in your system not booting. To fix it just zero the super-block on the offending device that you made the mistake in. Eg: /dev/sda mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sda It is also a way of starting fresh if you wanted to create a new array.........

blocked for more than 120 seconds issues with iowait and timeout on Live Linux distribution while writing to physical disk

This happened while an mdadm array was syncing, all access from writing a new blank file to opening a small .txt file was very slow: [222117.312078] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds [222117.685060] EXT3-fs (md0): using internal journal [222117.685096] EXT3-fs (md0): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode [222122.376847] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds [222122.602825] EXT3-fs (md2): using internal jour........

mdadm how to create mdadm.conf config file

It is as simple as the command below, it will then update your mdadm.conf or create it in /etc/mdadm.conf mdadm --detail --brief --scan > /etc/mdadm.conf ........

mdadm real example of recovery and rebuilding of the array on Centos 6

In this example we have 2 drives in a RAID array and /dev/sdb is the one that failed. /dev/sda1 is also the /boot partition which we tell grub to install on /dev/sdb eg install root (hd0,0) /dev/sda1 on the new drive /dev/sdb (hd1) First copy the partition table from /dev/sda to /dev/sdb dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1 Run partprobe to detect the new partition table partprobe........

Centos 6 how to guide convert LVM non-RAID into mdadm 1/10 RAID array live without reinstalling

Here is the scenario you or a client have a remote machine that was installed as a standard/default minimal Centos 6.x machine on a single disk with LVM for whatever reason. Often many people do not know how to install it to a RAID array so it is common to have this problem and why reinstall if you don't need to? In some cases on a remote system you can't easily reinstall without physical or KVM access. So in this case you add a second physical or disk or already ha........

How To Install Linux Mint 17.2 on mdadm RAID with a separate boot partition

Iwas surprised to see that Linux Mint at the latest 17.2 version still has NO mdadm installer option, and worse the installer will not be able to create a proper booting environment even when you do install it. How to setup mdadm in Linux mint LiveCD sudo su apt-get install mdadm # partition as you need and then create your mdadm devices # create your SWAP md0 mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda1 /d........

grub cannot install or boot from mdadm RAID 10 array

root (hd2,1) Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x83 grub> root (hd2,2) root (hd2,2) Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83 grub> setup (hd2) setup (hd2) Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... no #weird thing about grub is that the drive you enter is considered hd0 For example when booted fu........

mdadm create raid10 array with only 2 drives

mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level 10 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdc2 --layout=f2 --metadata=0.90 Note that layout=f2 or layout=n2 is very important as without it you'll get a complaint like this: mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level 10 --raid-devices /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 missing missing mdadm: invalid number of raid devices: /dev/sdb1 It is basically more like a prop........

How to install grub on virtio KVM with Linux

I messed up the bootloader by accident on a standard Centos 6.3 install because I turned the /dev/vda1 boot partition into an mdadm raid 1. This was all done correctly aside from one point Ididn't realize was an issue metadata=00.90 is the only thing that will allow you to boot (otherwise grub won't work and you won't boot). So the next step is rescue mode from a CD right? The problem you will find is that grub does not detect your hard drives, this is Ibelieve is be........

What a hdd hard drive and mdadm RAID array failure looks like in Linux

[3805108.257042] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 1953525168 512-byte hardware sectors: (1.00 TB/931 GiB) [3805108.257052] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off [3805108.257054] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [3805108.257066] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA [3805108.257083] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 1953525168 512-byte hardware sectors: (1.00 TB/931 GiB) [3805108.257090] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off........

mdadm: Cannot open /dev/sda1: Device or resource busy

This was caused by some weird dmraid setup which kind of takes control of drives even if they're blank/unused. 1. Check the table. dmsetup table ddf1_44656c6c202020201000006010281f0b3f5195b77cf86172: 0 3905945600 linear 8:0 0 ddf1_44656c6c202020201000006010281f0b3f5195b77cf86172p3: 0 37124096 linear 253:0 284547072 ddf1_44656c6c202020201000006010281f0b3f5195b77cf86172p2: 0 283496448 linear 253:0 1050624 ddf1_44656c6c2020202010........

mdadm how to add additional RAID 1 drives

This is a great way to upgrade your RAID array or move it/copy it to a new set of hard drives. Eg. you have a current RAID 1 array on older/slower drives. Just add at least 1 of the new drives to the array, update grub/install it and then boot into it. Then you have a transparent data migration that is fully synchronized. mdadm --grow /dev/md126 --raid-devices 3 md127 : active raid1 sdc1........

mdadm increase recovery sync/resync speed slow solution/fix

The units in echo are kB as in kilobyte. Setting a high sync speed echo 120000 >/proc/sys/dev/raid/speed_limit_min This will increase the speed, note that sometimes a rebuild is slow due to current disk activity/iowait. If that is not the cause then you may have a hardware issue (controller, cable or a bad drive). Setting a lower sync speed echo 1200 >/proc/sys/dev/raid/speed_limit_max........

LSI MegaRAID Adventures, Guide and HowTo

LSi Megaraid At first it was configured as a RAID 0, then I deleted the Virtual Disk Group. I thought both drives would be shown and detected in Linux as sda and sdb but it actually shows nothing. To make them work you have to hit Ctrl+R before the system boots (when prompted) and create a Virtual Disk Group. In my case I created each one as RAID 0 (with a single drive only) as I just wanted JBOD but there is no such option or default in these Dell Pe........

mdadm enable bitmap to speed up rebuilds

Have you ever unplugged the wrong drive and then had to rebuild the entire array? It may not be a big deal in some ways but it does make your system vulnerable until the rebuild is done. Many distros often enable the "bitmap" feature and this basically keeps track of what parts need to be resynced in the case of a temporary removal of a drive from the array, this way it only needs to sync what has changed. To enable bitmap to speed up rebuilds and sync........

mdadm create RAID 1 array example

mdadm --create /dev/md2 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda3 /dev/sdb3 cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid1] md2 : active raid1 sdb3[1] sda3[0] 1363020736 blocks super 1.2 [2/2] [UU] [=>...................] resync = 8.3% (113597440/1363020736) finish=276.2min speed=75366K/sec ........

mdadm recover from dead drive

mdadm --manage /dev/md3 --add /dev/sda1 cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid1] [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10] md0 : inactive sdd2[1] sdd1[2](S) 31270272 blocks md3 : active raid1 sda1[2] sdb1[1] sdc1[3](F) 943730240 blocks [2/1] [_U] [>....................]........

mdadm: /dev/sdb1 not large enough to join array solution

mdadm --manage /dev/md1 --add /dev/sdb1 mdadm: metadata format 00.90 unknown, ignored. mdadm: metadata format 00.90 unknown, ignored. mdadm: metadata format 00.90 unknown, ignored. mdadm: /dev/sdb1 not large enough to join array md1's first primary member /dev/sda3 has 57394 cylinders while the /dev/sdb1 has 57393 (1 less cylinder) which is why it won't work. fdisk -l /dev/sda3 Disk /dev/sda3: 47........

mdadm how to add a device to an array after a failure

This array is a RAID 1 and in this case 1 of the 2 drives failed (a WD drive and I've found them to be the weakest and most unreliable of any brand and are easily damaged/DOA when shipping them). mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --add /dev/sdb1 The above assumes the array you want to add to is /dev/md0 and the device we are adding is /dev/sdb1 *One thing to remember is to make sure the partition you are adding is the correct size for the array. You can also g........

Debian UUID not working

Neither the blkid or the UUID internal to mdadm work to automount for some reason in Debian partprobe doesn't work but was a good suggestion from: http://pato.dudits.net/2008/11/03/special-device-uuidxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-does-not-exist-especially-with-lvm mount: special device /dev/disk/by-uuid/431b9b96-29e8f298-e89bd504-7065bddd does not exist mdadm -D /dev/md_d12 mdadm: metadata format 00.90 unknown, ignored. /dev/md_d12: &nb........

mdadm/Debian problem

This is one in a series of weird things whichIthought was motherboard related (I RMA'd the motherboard), the RAM tests fine with memtest86 and I used badblocks on both RAID 1 members with no errors and smartctl is happy with them. Basically the array crashes the kernel a lot and has issues when writing. [112322.723465] md0: rw=0, want=14958668696, limit=1887460480 [112322.731077] attempt to access beyond end of device [112322.731087] md........

How To Test If Your Hard Drive Is Good/Signs of dying hard drive

I like dd, although it only reads it, usually a read test of the entire disk will uncover if your hard drive is bad in some parts. This is a good thing to do at least once a month, a lot of times bizarre program behavior, laginess and crashing/unnmounting problems etc.. are due to a failing disc and SMART won't know it or indicate a problem: We must also remember there's never a guarantee, I've found that ever since we moved to larger and more platters per drive with 1TB drives........

GRUB Solution to error "Error 6: Mismatched or corrupt version of stage1/stage2"

GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory) [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device/filename.] grub> root (hd1,0) Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd grub> setup........

Linux High IOWAIT updatedb can't be killed and crash with mdadm

high IO wait 424 root 39 19 1900 848 552 D 0.0 0.0 0:00.91 updatedb root 424 0.0 0.0 1900 848 ? DN Mar11 0:00 /usr/bin/updatedb -f sysfs?rootfs?bdev?proc?cpuset?binfmt_misc?debugfs?sockfs?usbfs?pipefs?anon_inodefs?futexfs?tmpfs?inotifyfs?eventp........

updatedb/mdadm caused a kernel panic?

Jan 16 04:02:03 centosbox syslogd 1.4.1: restart. Jan 16 04:07:34 centosbox kernel: INFO: task updatedb:20771 blocked for more than 300 seconds. Jan 16 04:07:34 centosbox kernel: "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. Jan 16 04:07:34 centosbox kernel: updatedb D F78BE050 6476 20771 20766&n........

mdadm Centos 5 automatic resync

This made me nervous but it's clearly a cronjob based on the messages log that happens every Sunday at about 4:22. I actually can't find any evidence of it in cron.d cron.daily but it is there somewhere obviously. What I don't get is why doesn't this cronjob do a datacheck like Ubuntu's cronscript does? When you unnecessarily rebuild the array you lose your redundancy during that point which makes your data extremely vulnerable. *Update I did a grep of &q........

mdadm/md-check how to check array integrity without rebuilding

This doesn't seem to be widely known (maybe it's in some documentation that none of us read though)but there's an easy way to check the integrity of any mdadm array: sudo echo check > /sys/block/md0/md/sync_action -bash: /sys/block/md0/md/sync_action: Permission denied sudo will never work, this only works as root since echo is not actually a binary/command. It is built-into bash. /sys/devices/virtu........

md: data-check of RAID array md3

This really made me nervous but notice the mdstat says "check". This is because in Ubuntu there is a scheduled mdadm cronscript that runs everyday on Sunday at 00:57 that checks your entire array. This is a good way because it prevents gradual but unnoticed data corruption which Inever thought of. As long as the check completes properly you have peace of mind knowing that your data integretiy is assured and that your hard drives are functioning properly (I'........

mdadm: metadata format 00.90 unknown, ignored.

mdadm: metadata format 00.90 unknown, ignored. This happens with various versions of older mdadm such as mdadm - v2.6.7.1 - 15th October 2008 It is all because an extra 0 in 00.90 in /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf that it doesn't like (it doesn't seem to cause any problem except that message though): Solution - Edit your /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf and change 00.90 to 0.90 in your arrays: ARRAY /dev/md3 level=raid1 num-devices=2 metadata=0.90 UUID=f41a4644:6b2a05f........

mdadm RAID 1 adventures

I separated the 2 drives in the RAID 1 array. 1 is the old one /dev/sda and is out of date, while the separated other one /dev/sdc was in another drive and mounted and used with more data (updated). I wonder how mdadm will handle this: usb-storage: device scan complete md: md127 stopped. md: bind md: md127: raid array is not clean -- starting background reconstruction raid1: raid set md127 active with 1 out of 2 m........

mdadm won't boot due to fsck error

Nov 29 20:17:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 1157.180789] md: md1 stopped. Nov 29 20:17:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 1157.180829] md0: unknown partition table filesystem not responding/reading properly with du or rsync (this needed an fsck). [ 2571.489217] EXT3-fs error (device md2): ext3_lookup: deleted inode referenced: 35923106 [ 2571.942299] EXT3-fs error (device md2): ext3_lookup: deleted inode referenced: 35923110 [ 2571.9568........

Ubuntu 10.04/GRUB2 mdadm won't boot

Moving to RAID was a pain. What you have to do is the following from an existing install: Install mdadm Create your mdadm RAID 1 array on your spare hard drive. Start it with the missing disk. rsync the entire contents of your current / to the md partition. Here's a good way of doing it: rsync -Pha --exclude=/proc/* --exclude=/sys/* --exclude=/mnt/* /. /mnt/md2........

How to chroot properly into your OS/distro

From a LiveCD or if you're doing something like converting your non-RAID install to mdadm here's how you would chroot properly (you have to mount your proc, sys and dev on the running system/LiveCD to your chroot environment if you want things to work right, especially if you need to run update-initramfs due to a driver change etc..) *replace "path" with your mount/chroot path mount -o bind /proc /mnt/path/proc mount -o bind /dev/ mnt/pa........

Revert to GRUB 0.97/1 instead of GRUB2

had trouble trying to revert Ubuntu 10.04 LTS from grub2, won't boot mdraid and did not even install mdadm during the installation! I have tried moving back to GRUB 0.97 backed up original /boot and then copied /boot from an old Debian install. Modified device.map and menu.lst and put the appropriate kernels and initrd for Ubuntu back in /boot I ran grub: root (hd0,1) grub> setup (hd0) Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1........

mdadm Linux Software RAID QuickStart Guide

Create New RAID 1 Array: First setup your partitions (make sure they are exactly the same size) In my example I have sda3 and sdb3 which are 500GB in size. mdadm --create /dev/md2 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda3 /dev/sdb3 mdadm: array /dev/md2 started. Check Status Of The Array *Note I already have other arrays md0 and md1. You can see below that md2 is syn........

md: kicking non-fresh sda1 from array! - fix/solution

md: Autodetecting RAID arrays. md: autorun ... md: considering sdb1 ... md: adding sdb1 ... md: adding sda1 ... md: created md0 md: bind md: bind md: running: md: kicking non-fresh sda1 from array! md: unbind md: export_rdev(sda1) raid1: raid set md0 active with 1 out of 2 mirrors The md0 raid kicked sda1 ou........

mdadm when a RAID 1 member dies

[27969.398749] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] 3907029168 512-byte hardware sectors (2000399 MB) [27969.398749] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off [27969.398749] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [27969.398749] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA [27972.117543] ata6.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x1 SErr 0x0 action 0x0 [27972.117543] ata6.00: irq_stat 0x48000000 [27972.117543] ata6.00: cmd 60/08:00:ff:7........

mdadm "auto-read-only" Linux Software RAID solution

If you have the "(auto-read-only)" beside an arrayI have no idea why that happens but it is easy to fix. Just run "mdadm --readwrite /dev/md1" (rename md0 to the device with the problem and it will begin to resync. md1 : active (auto-read-only) raid1 sdb2[0] sda2[1] 19534976 blocks [2/2] [UU] resync=PENDING ........

Use rcconf to edit startup/init.d/init scripts on Debian/Ubuntu based distributions

I've never understood how to enable and disable services for different run levels in Debian based distros, it's just weird, annoying and doesn't make sense. I much prefer chkconfig from RHEL. Just install the package called 'rcconf' and be done with it. rcconf makes things easy for you. apt-get install rcconf Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done........

mdadm: /dev/sda1 is too small: 0K - solution

I was creating a RAID array and got this error: mdadm: /dev/sda1 is too small: 0K mdadm: create aborted Of course sda1 is not too small, both partitions sda1 and sdb1 are identical in size: Disk /dev/sda: 2000.3 GB, 2000398934016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Sta........

mdadm can you downgrade the superblock?

Why would you want to downgrade the superblock? Old mdadm verisons like mdadm 2.5.6 only use the 0.90 superblock/metadata and new versions use 1,1.0,1.1 and 1.2 superblocks by default. There are some annoying caveats with this, first of all the new superblocks (later than 0.90) CANNOT be read by GRUB, so you won't even be able to install GRUB. Even worse, old versions of mdadm CANNOT automatically detect arrays even if they were created with a new version of mdadm with th........

Why does mdadm have two sets of UUID's?

Which one does the OS care about? blkid says the UUID is "787f1fa4-b010-4d77-a010-795b42884f56" while md insists its UUID is "4d96dd3b:deb5d555:7adb93cb:ce9182d9" When in doubt, do we assume the OS takes the one from blkid? /dev/md0: UUID="787f1fa4-b010-4d77-a010-795b42884f56" TYPE="ext3" [root@localhost ~]# mdadm -D /dev/md0 /dev/md0: Version : 0.90 &........

mdadm force/fix proper md127 name

I have an md0 arary that my Centos install refers to. I feel this is half the reason why it won't boot anymore. I saw the initrd for Centos was assembling it as md127 even though it was known as md0. The reason for this is because I used mdadm --assemble --scan to detect the array on a LiveCD. I had no idea this name would stick (but now I realize the name is permanently stored in the metadata once you mount md127 or whatever random name assemble gives it). W........

Debian 5.04 RAID 1 mdadm boot problem GRUB error

I successfully created a single RAID 1 partition which includes /boot inside it and my root directory through the Debian installer. It said GRUB installed successfully but when I try booting the OS it seems GRUB can't read anything. When trying to boot from GRUB GRUB Loading stage 1.5. GRUB loading, please wait... Error 2 I get "Error 2" when trying to boot Debian. I also notice from a LiveCD that........

Centos 5.5 RAID 1 boot issue

I installed 5.5 with a 300GB RAID 1 partition (boot is also on this partition). It booted up fine the first few times until after I used a Live CD and accessed the array, and it became named /dev/md127 for some reason. Now whenI boot into CentOS I get a kernel panic and different errors, once I got "invalid superblock", even though the array is fine (it didn't happen again, probably because I was sure to dismount and stop the mdadm array properly). Here's what........

chroot into an off-line Linux version using a LiveCD/USB

It's not just as simple as running the chroot command, you need to ensure the /proc and /dev entries are passed through and populated to the chroot environment. Step 1 - Mount Your Off-lineOS mount /dev/sda1 /mnt Step 2 - Mount Proc mount -t proc none /mnt/proc Step 3 - Mount Dev Most guides will tell you to use this: mount -o bind /dev /mnt//dev but that doesn't work for some reason in many cases: mount: wron........

mdadm Linux Software RAID auto-detect and assemble RAID Array

mdadm --assemble --scan mdadm: /dev/md/diaghost05102010:2 has been started with 2 drives. mdadm: /dev/md/diaghost05102010:1 has been started with 2 drives. mdadm: /dev/md/diaghost05102010:0 has been started with 2 drives. -bash-3.1# cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [multipath] md125 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1] 14658185 blocks super 1.2........

Linux AHCI Hotswap Tips - Remember To Reread The Partition Table WITHOUT rebooting

From the package "parted" you can use the command "partprobe" to re-read the partition table. I really hate rebooting, and that's what Iloved to hear about AHCI motherboards, that they allow hotswap so you don't have to reboot. But that's only as good as the OS, if the OS does not reload the partition table you won't be able to do anything with that new drive you attached without rebooting. Yes, even without re-reading the partiton table Linux will........

Convert HDD/Hard Drive Partition(s) into non-RAID into RAID 1 using existing data without data loss and without reformatting.

Before we start I take no responsibility for this, you should have a backup and if you make a mistake during this process you could wipe out all of your data. So backup somewhere else before starting this as a precaution, or make sure it's data you could afford to lose. The RAID 1 Setup (Hardware Wise) I've already setup my 2 x 1TB (Seagate) drives with identical partitions, make sure your new hard drive (the empty one) is setup like your curr........