LinuxQuestions.org - Software RAID 1 from Existing Boot Drive

My problem is that I am getting an incorrect superblock when booting a RAID1 mirror. I have tried many things and so I will outline my procedure to see if there is something I missed and to see if there is something I did wrong. I do not have raidtools so 90% of the documentation out there cannot be applied to me. togami.com/~warren/guides/remoteraidcrazies/ <--- This page was as close as any document has come to helping me with this process.

This whole procedure was performed after booting a Live CD with none of the SATA drives mounted.

My setup plan:
/dev/sda is the pre-existing master and the drive I am wanting to mirror from. So data in the synch should flow sda -> sdb.

Code:

/dev/sda1 -> /dev/md0 (ext3) - to be "/boot"

/dev/sdb1 -> /dev/md0 (ext3) - to be "/boot"



/dev/sda2 -> /dev/md1 (swap)

/dev/sdb2 -> /dev/md1 (swap)



/dev/sda3 -> /dev/md2 (ext3) - to be "/"

/dev/sdb3 -> /dev/md2 (ext3) - to be "/"

Procedure:
To create the array:

I fdisked the /dev/sdb drive and made sure it was exactly like /dev/sda. I then ran mkfs.ext3 for /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb3, and ran mkswap for /dev/sdb2. Now that the drives were identical in their partition scehem I changed the filesystem type to "fd" for both /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. Next I created the array:

Code:

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-disks=2 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1

mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level=1 --raid-disks=2 /dev/sda2 /dev/sdb2

mdadm --create /dev/md2 --level=1 --raid-disks=2 /dev/sda3 /dev/sdb3

After issuing cat /proc/mdstat I saw that all drives were sync'ed properly (they all had [UU]). With the drives now sync'ed I moved on to mounting what is to be the root and boot partitions:

Code:

mount /dev/md2 /mnt/sysimage

Code:

mount /dev/md0 /mnt/sysimage/boot

I then chroot'ed to the environment and changed the /etc/fstab file and the /boot/grub/grub.conf file.

Code:

chroot /mnt/sysimage

Code:

vi /etc/fstab

Here I removed LABEL=/ and LABEL=/boot for / and /boot mountpoints respectively. I replaced these lines with the following:

Code:

/dev/md2      /            ext3    defaults    1 1

/dev/md0      /boot    ext3    defaults    1 2

Since these drives were apparently labeled I de-labeled them:

Code:

e2label /dev/sda1 ""

e2label /dev/sda3 ""

e2label /dev/sdb1 ""

e2label /dev/sdb3 ""

Code:

vi /etc/fstab

Here I added a kernel and initrd that reflected my system:

Code:

default=0

timeout=5

splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Fedora Core 4 RAID1 (2.6.12-1.1398_FCsmp)

        root (hd0,0)

        kernel /kernel-2.6.12-1.1398_FCsmp ro root=/dev/md0

        initrd /initrd-2.6.12-1.1398_FCsmp-RAID1.img

title Fedora Core 4 (2.6.12-1.1398_FCsmp)

        root (hd0,0)

        kernel /kernel-2.6.12-1.1398_FCsmp ro root=/dev/sda1

        initrd /initrd-2.6.12-1.1398_FCsmp.img

Since I wanted to be sure I had RAID1 loading on boot I built the ramdisk mentioned in the

Code:

/boot/grub/grub.conf

above:

Code:

mkinitrd --preload raid1 --with=raid1 /initrd-2.6.12-1.1398_FCsmp-RAID1.img 2.6.12-1.1398_FCsmp

Everything was ready, as far as I could tell, so I rebooted and got the message that the superblock did not match and a prompt for an emergency shell was give as an option. This also made the array out-of-sync and so I rebooted to the Live CD, sync'ed the drives with the procedure described above, and ran an e2fsck on them.

Code:

e2fsck /dev/sda1

e2fsck /dev/sdb3

e2fsck /dev/sdb1

e2fsck /dev/sdb3

None of this worked and I still get the message. Can anyone help? I do not have a backup drive to store all of the data or I would simply re-install Linux with the RAID1 already in place. Any ideas? THANKS!