I got a ghost in my system! Ok, I'm still having weird issues and as nobody replied, I'm still unsure how to proceed... Here, I tried reformating (dd'ed some zeros on the whole drives), repartitionning them. Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 1 1 961 83 Linux /dev/sdb2 2 1015 1005888 fd Linux raid autodetect I have 3 identical drives, fresh made, i issue the command: mdadm --create --verbose /dev/md1 --level=raid5 --raid-devices=3 /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdc2 /dev/sdd2 My system is a new install (nothing left in /etc, etc...), so I really don't get what's going on, check the output of several programs: /dev/md1: Version : 00.90.03 Creation Time : Tue Jul 3 16:29:38 2007 Raid Level : raid5 Array Size : 2011648 (1964.83 MiB 2059.93 MB) Used Dev Size : 1005824 (982.41 MiB 1029.96 MB) Raid Devices : 3 Total Devices : 3 Preferred Minor : 1 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Update Time : Tue Jul 3 16:31:05 2007 State : clean, degraded, recovering Active Devices : 2 Working Devices : 3 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 1 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 64K Rebuild Status : 39% complete UUID : 84aa4aaf:8b2c555e:3f9ae70d:2eedd5b3 Events : 0.4 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 0 8 18 0 active sync /dev/sdb2 1 8 34 1 active sync /dev/sdc2 3 8 50 2 spare rebuilding /dev/sdd2 ================================================================================ [dev 9, 1] /dev/md1 84AA4AAF.8B2C555E.3F9AE70D.2EEDD5B3 online [dev 8, 18] /dev/sdb2 84AA4AAF.8B2C555E.3F9AE70D.2EEDD5B3 good [dev 8, 34] /dev/sdc2 84AA4AAF.8B2C555E.3F9AE70D.2EEDD5B3 good [dev ?, ?] (unknown) 00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000 missing [dev 8, 50] /dev/sdd2 84AA4AAF.8B2C555E.3F9AE70D.2EEDD5B3 spare - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html