Hi Phil, On Fri, 2014-11-14 at 09:52 -0500, Phil Turmel wrote: > Hi Tony, > > {Convention on kernel.org is to trim posts & bottom or interleave posts} > Thanks a lot for the advice. > > Indeed. > > At this point, I would use --create --assume-clean, along with > "missing". You have a recent enough mdadm to specify > --data-offset=2048, which you definitely need. Something like: > > mdadm --create /dev/mdX --assume-clean --data-offset=2048 \ > --level=5 --raid-devices=4 --chunk=512 \ > missing /dev/sd{f,i,h} > > You should verify the Device Role numbers with mdadm -E again, as your > drive letters have changed from the initial report. To be absolutely > sure, I suggest you record drive serial numbers for each role #. Also > note the use of braces instead of square brackets--bash re-orders the > latter, and that would break your array. For this type of recovery, it > is vital that the devices be listed precisely in device role order, > starting with zero. > > After creation, verify that the space before and space after stats for > each device match the original report, before fsck or mount. > (--data-offset controls space before, that plus --size controls space > after.) That is my plan to closely look at devices role to ensure proper order in array creation. To avoid any mistake, i was planning to use /dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sdc syntax instead of /dev/sd{a,b,c}, it's probably the same, is it not? Like said in my original post, i am making duplicate copies of each disk, just to be extra safe. I already did it for two disks i have on hands. I have ordered and waiting for two other drives to come in. As soon as the copies will be done for the two other disks, i will try that procedure. I will use the --data-offset parameter as you suggest. Thank you so much for your help! Tony -- 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