On 07/25/2016 11:18 PM, Adam Goryachev wrote: > It sounds/looks like you partitioned the two drives with GPT, and then used the > entire drive for the RAID, which probably overwrote at least one of the GPT > entries. Now gparted has overwritten part of the disk where mdadm keeps it's data. > > So, good news, assuming you really haven't touched sdc, then it should still be > fine. Try the following: > mdadm --manage --stop /dev/md4 > > Check it has stopped cat /proc/mdstat and md4 should not appear at all. > > Now re-assemble with only the one working member: > mdadm --assemble --force /dev/md4 /dev/sdc > > If you are lucky, you will then be able to mount /dev/md4 as needed. > > If not, please provide: > Output of the above mdadm --assemble > Logs from syslog/dmesg in relation to the assembly attempt > mdadm --query /dev/sdc > mdadm --query /dev/sdc1 > mdadm --query /dev/sdd > mdadm --query /dev/sdd1 > mdadm --detail /dev/md4 (after the assemble above). > > Being RAID1, it shouldn't be too hard to recover your data, just need to get > some more information about the current state. > > Once you have the array started, your next step is to avoid the problem in > future. So send through the above details, and then additional advice can be > provided. Generally I've seen most people create the partition and then use the > partition for RAID, that way the partition is marked as in-use by the array. The > alternative is to wipe the beginning and end of the drive (/dev/zero) and then > re-add to the array. Once synced, you can repeat with the other drive. The > problem is if something (eg your BIOS) decides to "initialise" the drive for > you, then it will overwrite your data/mdadm data. > > Hope the above helps. > > Regards, > Adam Adam, Thank you! There are a lot of things in life I'm good at, speaking mdadm fluently, when I deal with it once every 2 years -- isn't one of them. /dev/sdc was still OK and did assemble in degraded mode just fine: # mdadm --manage --stop /dev/md4 mdadm: stopped /dev/md4 # cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid1] md1 : active raid1 sdb6[1] sda6[0] 52396032 blocks super 1.2 [2/2] [UU] md0 : active raid1 sdb5[1] sda5[0] 511680 blocks super 1.2 [2/2] [UU] md3 : active raid1 sdb8[1] sda8[0] 2115584 blocks super 1.2 [2/2] [UU] md2 : active raid1 sdb7[1] sda7[0] 921030656 blocks super 1.2 [2/2] [UU] bitmap: 0/7 pages [0KB], 65536KB chunk # mdadm --assemble --force /dev/md4 /dev/sdc mdadm: /dev/md4 has been started with 1 drive (out of 2). # cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid1] md4 : active raid1 sdc[0] 2930135488 blocks super 1.2 [2/1] [U_] bitmap: 0/22 pages [0KB], 65536KB chunk Up and running, mounted with all data in tact (well, at least until I hit the address in the partition table where the mdadm data overwrote part of the partition table -- I see a Segmentation Fault coming) So I take it having one large raid1 filesystem created out of a primary partition on a disk is a bad idea? My goal in doing so was to create the largest block of storage out of the two drives I could (saving 100M unpartitioned at the end in case of drive failure and disk size variance) How should I proceed if I want to create a large raid1 array out of the two disks? Should I create a logical/extended partition setup and then create the array out of the extended partition? (that is the setup I have for all other raid1 disks that also hold /boot, /, /home, etc.... I take it adding sdd back into md4 is not a good idea at this point. Do I implement a new partition scheme on sdd, and then "create" a new single disk raid1 array (say md5), mount it on some temporary mount point, copy the data, then stop both, assemble what was sdd/md5 as md4 then nuke the partitions on sdc, repartition sdc (as I did sdd) and then add sdc to the new array with sdd? (or I could dump the data to some temp location, nuke both sdc and sdd, repartition, recreate, assemble and then copy back to the new fully functional array -- that sounds better) What are your thoughts on the partition scheme and the approach outlined above? And thank you again for steering me straight and saving the data. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- 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