Topic: RAID status question

[Des Dougan]

I have been building a new server with 2 40GB drives using software RAID1. After I had set up the box, I checked the status with cat /proc/mdstat and found that the second drive (hdd in this case - the drive is on the secondary slave interface, with the CD on the secondary master) was offline. I checked the BIOS and found that the drive was not set up the same as the primary (32 bit access was off), so I enabled it and ran /sbin/raidhotadd on the three partitions. This went well, and the mdstat showed all three partitions correctly working in the array. Last night I shut the box down and moved it to the client's office today, and when it came up, I had the same problem.

So, my question: have I missed a step in fully activating the drive, or does it sound like it's faulty?

Thanks,

Des Dougan

[Reinhold]

Des,

Your system does not autostart the raid... or so it seems.
Have you set the persistent superblock ? SME 6.x does this automatically ...
If you are missing a line like:
persistent-superblock 1
in /etc/raidtab something went wrong and you either have to start your raid "manually" after each boot (?with an entry in /etc/rc.d/rc.local ) or add that superblock.
BTW: did you use "raidstart /dev/md0" at least once (and without the quotes) ?

If the above is too brief for you please post 3 things:
i) content of:  /etc/raidtab
ii)result of cat /proc/mdstat
iii) results of: hdparm /dev/hda    
...  hdparm /dev/hdd
and I'll go into more detail

(note:) SME doesn't care too much about BIOS settings ... like Linux in general...
So while 32bit (you are trying to say dma=on ? using hdparm) is a good idea and done automatically by SME 6.x this is NOT where your problem lies .-) - In general: "sounds like you are using SME 5.x ??? ... and I'd recommend to use the new 6.0 release ... MUCH better !

[%sig%]

[Des Dougan]

Reinhold,

Thanks for your help. Yes, I am using 5.x - 5.6 actually.

The persistent suoerblock setting seems to be on from the output below. I haven't run the raidstart command, and as you can see the hdparm command for the seconddrive returned an error.

I won't be moving to 6.0 until I've had a chance to test it (and the various contribs) on my own network - this is a first SME box for a new client.


Des


[root@whiteley RPMS]# more /etc/raidtab
raiddev             /dev/md1
raid-level                  1
nr-raid-disks               2
chunk-size                  64k
persistent-superblock       1
nr-spare-disks              0
    device          /dev/hda2
    raid-disk     0
    device          /dev/hdd2
    raid-disk     1
raiddev             /dev/md0
raid-level                  1
nr-raid-disks               2
chunk-size                  64k
persistent-superblock       1
nr-spare-disks              0
    device          /dev/hda1
    raid-disk     0
    device          /dev/hdd1
    raid-disk     1
raiddev             /dev/md2
raid-level                  1
nr-raid-disks               2
chunk-size                  64k
persistent-superblock       1
nr-spare-disks              0
    device          /dev/hda3
    raid-disk     0
    device          /dev/hdd3
    raid-disk     1
[root@whiteley RPMS]# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1]
read_ahead 1024 sectors
md2 : active raid1 hda3[0]
      264960 blocks [2/1] [U_]

md1 : active raid1 hda2[0]
      38708544 blocks [2/1] [U_]

md0 : active raid1 hda1[0]
      104320 blocks [2/1] [U_]

unused devices:
[root@whiteley RPMS]# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 I/O support  =  0 (default 16-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
 using_dma    =  0 (off)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 nowerr       =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 77536/255/63, sectors = 78156288, start = 0
 busstate     =  1 (on)
[root@whiteley RPMS]# hdparm /dev/hdd
/dev/hdd: No such device or address

[Reinhold]

Des,

Since hdparm can't even access your /dev/hdd there is something serious buried below what we are talking here...
Does fdisk see hdd ?
Did you really ever get a working array i.e. something like:
----------------------------------------------------------------
md0 : active raid1 hdd1 [1] hda1[0]
104320 blocks [2/2] [UU]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
... try to access that drive with different tools. The only thing I can imagine now (I'm on a trip and got 2 run) is that you have a SEAGATE drive with "SLEEP" mode activated in the mainboard bios ... pls check!

[Des Dougan]

Reinhold,

Yes, it looks like it has completely failed - fdisk doesn't see it at all. I did have the array working, but lost hdd on reboot, and now, as I said, it looks like it has died.

Thanks for your help.

Des