removing software raid configuration

sbabcock23 · 03-05-2007, 01:10 PM

Hi,

I am a newbie and I screwed up my raid configuration a bit. So I wanted to start from the beginning without losing any data.

I created an raid on /dev/md0. I tried to remove the drive /dev/sdd1 using the command /sbin/mdadm /dev/md0 -r /dev/sdd1
but it failed saying mdadm: hot remove failed for /dev/sdd1: Device or resource busy.

Anyways I just want to remove it and start over without losing any data.

Thanks,
Steve

acid_kewpie · 03-05-2007, 02:51 PM

well it helps if you tell us what kind of raid you're using, what level etc... you can't just "remove" deices from raid without losing data... they are single filesystems spread across multiple devices. you can often degrade an array by force, format the degraded drive and migrate data, put it's not the tablecloth trick, you don't just whop out the tick box that says "raid" and everything miraculously untouched...

sbabcock23 · 03-06-2007, 11:52 AM

Sorry, I am using a raid 1

acid_kewpie · 03-06-2007, 12:36 PM

ok, well using raid one then you CAN degrade your array and reformat one drive. using mdadm you can -f (fail) one of the two and then -r (remove) it. once that's done just use fdisk to change the drive type from linux raid to standard linux and the format it.

sbabcock23 · 03-07-2007, 09:32 AM

great thanks it worked