This is reported on http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla as bug # 81258 Description of problem: I have a raid 5 with 4 disks. sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4 I have added 2 disks to my system. The new disks are sdb and sdd. At first they did not have a valid partion table. I got this error on both disks: md: could not lock sdb1, zero-size? Marking faulty. md: could not import sdb1, trying to run array nevertheless. [events: 00000004] md: could not lock sdd1, zero-size? Marking faulty. md: could not import sdd1, trying to run array nevertheless. That should not be a problem because the raid 5 disks are now sda1, sdc1, sde1 and sdf1. I did change raidtab before I shutdown to add the new disks. The system seems to ignore raidtab for existing arrays. Must only use the file when you use mkraid. I have since partitioned the 2 disks sdb and sdd with type fd. raidstart still fails. I have created a raid 1 array on the 2 disks sdb and sdd. I did not need to use the force option with mkraid. The OS is on 2 IDE disks (hda and hdb). /dev/md0 is swap /dev/md1 is / /dev/md2 is /boot /dev/md3 is the problem array. /dev/md4 is the array on the 2 new disks. Here is a copy of my raidtab file: 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/hdb3 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/hda1 raid-disk 0 device /dev/hdb1 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/hda3 raid-disk 0 device /dev/hdb2 raid-disk 1 raiddev /dev/md3 raid-level 5 parity-algorithm left-symmetric nr-raid-disks 4 chunk-size 64k persistent-superblock 1 nr-spare-disks 0 device /dev/sda1 raid-disk 0 device /dev/sdc1 raid-disk 1 device /dev/sde1 raid-disk 2 device /dev/sdf1 raid-disk 3 raiddev /dev/md4 raid-level 1 #parity-algorithm left-symmetric nr-raid-disks 2 chunk-size 64k persistent-superblock 1 nr-spare-disks 0 device /dev/sdb1 raid-disk 0 device /dev/sdd1 raid-disk 1 I did remove the 2 new disks. Then my device names were back to normal. The array /dev/md3 did come up after a re-boot. /dev/md4 did not (as expected, the drives had no power)! Please help! I can resolve the problem by addressing the new disks so they will be sde and sdf. But this seems like it could be a major problem for others in the future. You should be able to add disks to a system without such problems. I will keep the disks configured like this for a while. If someone wants me to try something I will. If I lose data I don't care. I have 2 or more backups. Thanks. ------- Additional Comment #1 From Mr Watkins on 2003-01-09 22:20 ------- I will be trashing the array soon. I will re-create it with 7 disks. If anyone wants to debug this issue, they need to start within the next few days. I may play first, add a hot spare, fail a drive, raidhotadd. Stuff like that. I want to determine if this stuff is top notch, or not. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
