Help w/ Raid5 failure!
 

I am running Redhat Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2199.nptl) on a computer that is set up with a raid 5. I have a boot drive (hda) and 3 drives in the raid (hdb, hdc, hdd) hdb has failed. The raid will not run in degraded mode. When you start the system it doesn't recognize the raid.

Contents of the raidtab file:

raiddev /dev/md0
raid-level 5
nr-raid-disks 3
nr-spare-disks 0
persistent-superblock-1
parity algorithym left-symmetric
chunk size 32
device /dev/hdb1
raid-disk 0
device /dev/hdc1
raid-disk 1
device /dev/hdd1
raid-disk 2

I have raidtools and do not have mdadm. I couldn't find mdadm for this core :mad: mdadm looks like the way to go, but I need the old school way of bringing the array back up and setting hdb into fault mode. My clients need to be able to use the server until I get a replacement drive to install.

UPDATE here's what I did to get the array back and under repair: (remember, I'm on Fedora Core 2 and didn't have mdadm. I also couldn't find mdadm to run on this core version. These instructions are using raidtools.)

1) Installed the new drive (hdb) - drive was the same size but diff manufacturers. (crossing fingers there won't be any problems -- so far so good.

2) Created the partition hdb1 on the new drive.

3) I tried running raidstart /dev/md0, but it wouldn't run... UNTIL i edited the /etc/raidtab file and moved the hdb entries for device and raid-disk to the bottom of the file. Here's the updated raidtab file:

raiddev /dev/md0
raid-level 5
nr-raid-disks 3
nr-spare-disks 0
persistent-superblock-1
parity algorithym left-symmetric
chunk size 32
device /dev/hdc1
raid-disk 1
device /dev/hdd1
raid-disk 2
device /dev/hdb1
raid-disk 0

4) run raidstart /dev/md0

5) run raidhotadd /dev/md0 /dev/hdb1

The raid is rebuilding and everything appears ok.

Close call! Thanks for posting the resolution as others in the future may benefit from this. TAG!