On 01/03/2024 at 17:27, Roger Heflin wrote:
Do "fdisk -l /dev/sd[a-h]", given 4tb devices they are probably GPT partitions.
Not "probably". "type ee" means GPT protective MBR.
Do not recreate the array, to do that you must have the correct device
order and all other parameters for the raid correct.
You will also need to determine how/what created the partitions.
There are reports that some motherboards will "fix" disks without a
partition table. if you dual boot into windows I believe it also
wants to "fix" it.
For now there are two competing theories:
a) if the disk has no partition table at all, then the BIOS creates a
new partition table;
b) if the disk has a backup GPT partition table but missing or corrupted
primary GPT partition table, then the BIOS restores the primary
partition table from the backup partition table.
a) implies that even if you manage to re-create the RAID superblocks,
they will be overwritten again at next boot. Your options are:
- back-up the data before the next boot, re-create the RAID array in
partitions instead of whole disks and restore tha data;
- or back-up the data before the next boot and re-create the RAID array
in partitions with --data-offset value set so that the data area remains
at the same disk offset.
b) implies that if you manage to re-create the RAID superblocks, they
will be overwritten again at next boot unless you also erase the
protective MBR and primary and backup GPT partition tables with wipefs.
You should likely also read the last 2-4 weeks of this group's
archive. Another guy with a very similar partition table accident
recovered his array and posted some about the recovery steps he
needed.
The discussion subject was "Requesting help recovering my array" and
started in January.
