I have a RAID5 on 3 drives with a spare. One drive failed and it rebuilt itself using the spare, then, before I could replace the spare, a 2nd drive failed. I shut it down, got some new drives (bigger to be sure they weren't too small, allowing for differences in drive sizes reported by drive makers), replaced the bad drives, and rebuilt the spare with no problem at all. Last night there were thunderstorms all night and the computer lost power a few times (yes, normally it's plugged in to a UPS, that's a long story that doesn't effect anything here).
The RAID is on /dev/hde, f, g, and h, with h as the spare. On reboot, the drive was not being reassembled. I tried this: mdadm --assemble --verbose /dev/md0 /dev/hde /dev/hdf /dev/hdg and I got this: mdadm: looking for devices for /dev/md0 mdadm: /dev/hde is identified as a member of /dev/md0, slot 0. mdadm: /dev/hdf is identified as a member of /dev/md0, slot 1. mdadm: /dev/hdg is identified as a member of /dev/md0, slot 2. mdadm: added /dev/hde to /dev/md0 as 0 mdadm: added /dev/hdf to /dev/md0 as 1 mdadm: added /dev/hdg to /dev/md0 as 2 mdadm: /dev/md0 assembled from 1 drive - not enough to start the array. I stopped the array and reran the above command with "--run" added to it. Then I ran: mdadm --detail /dev/md0 and got this: /dev/md0: Version : 00.90.01 Creation Time : Sat Feb 25 07:10:01 2006 Raid Level : raid5 Device Size : 244198464 (232.89 GiB 250.06 GB) Raid Devices : 3 Total Devices : 1 Preferred Minor : 0 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Update Time : Mon Aug 13 06:00:34 2007 State : active, degraded Active Devices : 1 Working Devices : 1 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 0 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 64K UUID : 0dcc0b91:f92304ba:e66cf827:43274a37 Events : 0.3700484 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 0 0 0 - removed 1 0 0 - removed 2 34 0 2 active sync /dev/hdg I've tried this at different times and gotten different drives. I've also dried: mdadm --detail /dev/hde and I get: /dev/hde: Magic : a92b4efc Version : 00.90.00 UUID : 0dcc0b91:f92304ba:e66cf827:43274a37 Creation Time : Sat Feb 25 07:10:01 2006 Raid Level : raid5 Raid Devices : 3 Total Devices : 3 Preferred Minor : 0 Update Time : Wed Aug 8 05:04:55 2007 State : active Active Devices : 3 Working Devices : 3 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 0 Checksum : 732dc269 - correct Events : 0.3547873 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 64K Number Major Minor RaidDevice State this 0 33 0 0 active sync /dev/hde 0 0 33 0 0 active sync /dev/hde 1 1 33 64 1 active sync /dev/hdf 2 2 34 0 2 active sync /dev/hdg The major differences come up when I run the same command to examine hdf, g, and h. With f and g, on the last part, I get this with hdf: Number Major Minor RaidDevice State this 1 33 64 1 active sync /dev/hdf 0 0 0 0 0 removed 1 1 33 64 1 active sync /dev/hdf 2 2 34 0 2 active sync /dev/hdg Then with hdg, I get: Number Major Minor RaidDevice State this 2 34 0 2 active sync /dev/hdg 0 0 0 0 0 removed 1 1 0 0 1 faulty removed 2 2 34 0 2 active sync /dev/hdg and on hdh, I get: Number Major Minor RaidDevice State this 3 34 64 3 spare /dev/hdh 0 0 33 0 0 active sync /dev/hde 1 1 33 64 1 active sync /dev/hdf 2 2 34 0 2 active sync /dev/hdg 3 3 34 64 3 spare /dev/hdh I notice the information changes from drive to drive and is inconsistent. Mdadm is not telling me which drives are bad when it assembles the array and I want to verify what is going on. I'd like to get more info to see if mdadm "officially" sees drives e and f as bad or just drive e, or none at all (since reports vary according to the drive). I would have thought, after the first issue with any drive, that the system would not have had the others in use, since, when booting, it would have waited for me to hit "Control-D to continue," so I doubt that there are actually two bad drives. Any ideas how I can get more information, find out why mdadm is not rebuilding the RAID or to get it to rebuild it? It seems to think the drives are all okay when it's adding them and doesn't report any issues with any drives until it's done, then it says there aren't enough drives to start the RAID. Hal -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]