I took a stock 2.2.14 kernel, applied that raid patch (this time successfully), built and booted the kernel. Since I had a /etc/raidtab.foo i thought that raid wouldn't get autoconfigured but still I'm seeing these messages in dmesg output for which you may have an explanation: .... md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MAX_REAL=12 linear personality registered raid0 personality registered raid1 personality registered raid5 personality registered raid5: measuring checksumming speed raid5: MMX detected, trying high-speed MMX checksum routines pII_mmx : 1460.754 MB/sec p5_mmx : 1523.619 MB/sec 8regs : 1120.140 MB/sec 32regs : 658.368 MB/sec using fastest function: p5_mmx (1523.619 MB/sec) .... Partition check: sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 md.c: sizeof(mdp_super_t) = 4096 hda: hda1 hdb: hdb1 hdc: hdc1 hdd: hdd1 autodetecting RAID arrays (read) hda1's sb offset: 60026752 [events: 00000000] md: invalid raid superblock magic on hda1 md: hda1 has invalid sb, not importing! could not import hda1! (read) hdb1's sb offset: 60026752 [events: 00000000] md: invalid raid superblock magic on hdb1 md: hdb1 has invalid sb, not importing! could not import hdb1! (read) hdc1's sb offset: 60026752 [events: 00000000] md: invalid raid superblock magic on hdc1 md: hdc1 has invalid sb, not importing! could not import hdc1! (read) hdd1's sb offset: 60026752 [events: 00000000] md: invalid raid superblock magic on hdd1 md: hdd1 has invalid sb, not importing! could not import hdd1! autorun ... ... autorun DONE. OTOH, /sbin/mkraid /dev/md0 and subsequent /sbin/mkfs /dev/md0 worked fine so I'm hoping to be there soon: # cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [raid0] [raid1] [raid5] read_ahead 1024 sectors md0 : active raid0 hdd1[3] hdc1[2] hdb1[1] hda1[0] 240107008 blocks 16k chunks unused devices: <none> # -- Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies [EMAIL PROTECTED]