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Old 12-01-2014, 05:48 PM   #1
MtnBikeMike
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Disk Cloning Not Working on RAID 1 Solo Disk


I have a BusyBox NAS RAID 1 setup. One of the drives (disk 2) has failed with lots of SMART errors and I am unable to boot. Before I start any repairs, I would like to clone the drives. My problem is, is failed Disk 2 will not clone, but my real problem is working Disk 1 clones, but when I run mdadm --examine /dev/sda3 on the clone it finds nothing. Yet when I do this on the original drive it finds the proper information!

I've cloned the drives with StarTech SDOCK2U33RE (A standalone device that clones disks sector-by-sector), as well as with TrueImage 2014. What is strange is that mdadm --examine /dev/sda1 on the clone actually works, but does not work for /dev/sda3, which just happens to be where all the data is. It states "No md superblock detected on /dev/sda3".

I should note that /dev/sda3 is a LVM container. I should also note, I am a Linux newbie, or more so, my Linux skills are outdated.

So my question is, why are my sector-by-sector clones displaying different results from the source disk? Could it be that the information is there, but not recognized due to something like a hardware ID that is not being cloned? Can I fix the the clones?

Bonus Points:
To recover the data from the working disk 1, I plan on following the directions located here: http://www.howtoforge.com/recover_da...lvm_partitions

Is there maybe a better way to possibly repair the raid, or configure it to run with a single disk?

The failed drive 2 is still accessible and I can still pull mdadm info. I have included images of both drive mdadm --examine printouts (each disk booted by itself from a knoppix live disc without the other disk installed).

Thanks for all your assistance! It is VERY much appreciated! I'll be checking this thread frequently and will be very active in responding to all those willing to help. Thank you!

mdadm --examine output on failed disk 2


mdadm --examine output on working disk 1 the clone shows the same thing, except no superblock found for sda3

Last edited by MtnBikeMike; 12-02-2014 at 01:28 PM.
 
Old 12-02-2014, 09:06 AM   #2
smallpond
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Being unable to boot means that you either did not have a bootloader installed on both drives, or the firmware did not attempt to boot from the second drive when the first drive has failed.

If its the former case do grub-install to the 2nd drive. If its the latter case move the drive to the bootable slot. In neither case do you want to clone the drive. That will copy the metadata that is supposed to be unique on each drive, which will confuse the kernel and the RAID software. Once you are booted from the good drive, use mdadm to add a second drive to the RAID and rebuild it correctly.
 
Old 12-02-2014, 01:16 PM   #3
MtnBikeMike
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Thanks for the response smallpond. So, I shouldn't have said that it won't boot, it boots, it just is unable to mount anything. I get the same results if I boot both original source drives together, the working drive on it's own, or the faulty drive on its own. I do get a grub screen and if I try editing it, this is the screen I get.



If I let it boot without interruption, this is the final screen I get.
 
Old 12-02-2014, 01:17 PM   #4
MtnBikeMike
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Thanks for the response smallpond. So, I shouldn't have said that it won't boot, it boots, it just is unable to mount anything. I get the same results if I boot both original source drives together, the working drive on it's own, or the faulty drive on its own. I do get a grub screen and if I try editing it, this is the screen I get.



If I let it boot without interruption, this is the final screen I get.
 
Old 12-02-2014, 03:06 PM   #5
MtnBikeMike
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I responded shortly after you posted a reply smallpond. I then edited the original post so the photos were not so large and not my response and the original post is gone... I thought maybe every post and edit gets reviewed or there is a delay but its been like 3 hours. :/
 
Old 12-02-2014, 03:17 PM   #6
mostlyharmless
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Nah, we're all volunteers here, so you might get a response right away, if someone thinks they can be helpful, or never, if no one knows....

Try reposting the original post if you can. Welcome to LQ, sorry it got started off this way. The site was down earlier, maybe that caused the problem.

Last edited by mostlyharmless; 12-02-2014 at 03:18 PM.
 
Old 12-02-2014, 03:48 PM   #7
MtnBikeMike
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Thanks. I went ahead and re-posted here: http://goo.gl/qYJ5UQ
 
  


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