Re: Problems with software RAID on SATA

michael_at_etalon.net
Date: 08/18/05

  • Next message: Hendrik Boom: "Re: weird characters" 
    Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 08:37:58 -0700
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

    Quoting Stephen Tait <tait@digitallaw.co.uk>:

    > I'm just in the process of setting up a Sarge server to be used as a
    > sort of backup server. The main PATA discs are used to boot the OS
    > offof software RAID1, with the rest of the disc space used in JBOD
    > for not-so-important backups. However, I'm having problems getting
    > the new disc array up and running.
    >
    > We've put a SATA controller in the box, a cheap-as-chips PCI Adaptec
    > 1210SA which, according to lspci, uses the SIlicon Image SI3112
    > chipset to provide two SATA channels. Connected to this are two 320GB
    > drives which I want to turn into a RAID1 array. When the system
    > booted first, I used mdadm to create the RAID1 array md2 (mdadm
    > --create /dev/md2 --level=1 --raid-disks=2 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1),
    > checked /proc/mdstat to wait for the array to finish syncing, and
    > then formatted it ext3 and mounted it. Everything seemed to work fine
    > until I rebooted, whereupon the mount failed with the report that it
    > wasn't a valid ext[2|3] superblock; fsck confirmed this and on
    > further inspection it seemed that it wasn't a RAID device any more
    > either.
    >
    > ...and booted with that instead after editing GRUB's menu.lst. The
    > exact same error occurred, and I'm now at a bit of a loss to explain
    > what's happening. If I try and mount the discs on their own (i.e.
    > mount /dev/sdX /mnt/somedir) then they work just fine, so the
    > hardware works fine - so I'm almost certain it's a problem with
    > initting the RAID arrays at boot. At the moment I'm just rebuilding
    > the array to see what happens when I don't try and mount it at boot,
    > but only after the OS has finished booting, but of course that'll
    > only be a temporary workaround. If it's any help, here are my fstab
    > and mdadm.conf's:
    >
    > pika@zaphod2:~$ cat /etc/fstab
    > # /etc/fstab: static file system information.
    > #
    > # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
    > proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
    > /dev/md1 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
    > /dev/md0 /boot ext2 defaults 0 2
    > /dev/hdb9 /home ext3 defaults 0 2
    > /dev/hdb4 /mnt/avj-backup ext3 defaults 0 2
    > /dev/hda7 /mnt/dcj-backup ext3 defaults 0 2
    > /dev/hdb8 /tmp ext3 defaults 0 2
    > /dev/md4 /usr ext3 defaults 0 2
    > /dev/md3 /var ext3 defaults 0 2
    > /dev/hdb7 none swap sw 0 0
    > /dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
    > #/dev/md2 /mnt/dcj-archive ext3 defaults 0 2
    >
    >> ===============================================
    >
    > pika@zaphod2:~$ cat /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
    > DEVICE partitions
    > ARRAY /dev/md4 level=raid1 num-devices=2
    > UUID=b8093124:a6d6f876:a29eecb7:e1b332f3
    > devices=/dev/hda6,/dev/hdb6
    > ARRAY /dev/md3 level=raid1 num-devices=2
    > UUID=1973b0c3:e38869d2:ffef0cde:92048042
    > devices=/dev/hda5,/dev/hdb5
    > ARRAY /dev/md2 level=raid1 num-devices=2
    > UUID=78a3be5a:f0838fe2:4d4ce7ed:3a969954
    > devices=/dev/sda1,/dev/sdb1
    > ARRAY /dev/md1 level=raid1 num-devices=2
    > UUID=51d55d28:3e653dce:631dd682:8dd52a37
    > devices=/dev/hda2,/dev/hdb2
    > ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid1 num-devices=2
    > UUID=56e09876:a751356e:b86535d0:95091b5b
    > devices=/dev/hda1,/dev/hdb1
    >
    > As you can see, most of the important directories are mounted in
    > software RAID1 on the two PATA discs with unimportant stuff on JBOD,
    > although of course this shouldn't make any difference. All the usual
    > dmesg etc. stuff doesn't seem to tell me anything I don't already
    > know. If anyone has experienced this before or has any pointers as to
    > how I can troubleshoot it, I'd be much obliged!

    I have had some trouble getting a raid array to inialize on boot in the past.
    My fix, was to remove its entry from the mdadm.conf file, and re-cfdisk
    the disks with the auto-detect-raid setting. Then create the raid array
    and reboot, it came up just fine.
    Other than that, I'm not sure that else could be wrong.
    Hopefully someone else on the list has some better ideas.

    Cheers,
    Mike 

    -- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
  • Next message: Hendrik Boom: "Re: weird characters"

    Relevant Pages

    • After verifying DMI Pool Data bootup freezes
      ... Lifeguard Diagnostics CD and discs and I've had success ... >>I can't boot up my computer and am having several ... >>When I try to unplug my hard drive and boot to the XP ... >>When I try to boot to the XP Pro SP1 cd with the hard ...
      (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)
    • Re: XP cd will not boot? Trying to get rid of Vista
      ... discs was bought by my as part of setting up my own media center - the discs ... are OEM discs and I use disc 1, which is the boot disc. ... The second disk should have a folder called ... Vista cd, I can get through the boot sequence without problems - so ...
      (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter)
    • Progress and advice so far
      ... apparently the console fonts are in a directory called ... I sprang for the repo discs. ... Grub is really easy to edit for dual boot (at least if your other boot is ... To unsubscribe or change subscription options: ...
      (Fedora)
    • Re: Win2k server hangs on boot
      ... Because we have moved the discs into a different chassis, ... stayed with the discs, kind off ruled out the blade chassis it self, but it ... Can you boot it with a diagnostics CD? ... One should be with the server ...
      (microsoft.public.windows.server.general)
    • Problems adding a second A1000
      ... I decided to add a extra A1000 to my current Solaris E420 running ... I found the new raid device and its 3 73gb discs. ... Finally Discs 2-5 are the initial RAID array that was set up. ... Finally I tried to the commands I used earlier to see if I could get the ...
      (SunManagers)