Hey guys. Hope someone can help. I recently did a clean install of ubuntu 11.10 on my boot hdd. I have a further 3 hdd that were setup as raid 5. Seems the superblocks are missing from 2 of the 3 drives.

Here is the first bit of info I can provide as I dont really know where or what to do next. Your help and patience will be most appreciated.


milo@MiloBase:~$ sudo mdadm --examine /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
Magic : Intel Raid ISM Cfg Sig.
Version : 1.2.02
Orig Family : 83a966ae
Family : 83a966ae
Generation : 00001bce
UUID : de9384e6:675dbe6c:6f24cf84:390457d0
Checksum : 15da57a4 correct
MPB Sectors : 2
Disks : 3
RAID Devices : 1

Disk00 Serial : 9QM3SK1X
State : active
Id : 00000000
Usable Size : 976766541 (465.76 GiB 500.10 GB)

[SafeStorage]:
UUID : e0979f13:1f631cd5:bf8ccef8:4c6cce55
RAID Level : 5
Members : 3
Slots : [UUU]
This Slot : 0
Array Size : 1953531904 (931.52 GiB 1000.21 GB)
Per Dev Size : 976766216 (465.76 GiB 500.10 GB)
Sector Offset : 0
Num Stripes : 7630984
Chunk Size : 64 KiB
Reserved : 0
Migrate State : idle
Map State : normal
Dirty State : clean

Disk01 Serial : 9QM3SK94
State : active
Id : 00010000
Usable Size : 976768654 (465.76 GiB 500.11 GB)

Disk02 Serial : 9QM3SJ16
State : active
Id : 00020000
Usable Size : 976768654 (465.76 GiB 500.11 GB)
milo@MiloBase:~$ sudo mdadm --examine /dev/sdb
mdadm: No md superblock detected on /dev/sdb.
milo@MiloBase:~$ sudo mdadm --examine /dev/sdc
mdadm: No md superblock detected on /dev/sdc.

What OS was there before Ubuntu? If not Linux, maybe it just doesn't recognise the format.
If it was Linux, its possible the install marked them as unused or somesuch.
Do you need to recover data or can you just start over on those disks.
For recovery, try using fdisk or somesuch to mark them as type fd (Linux RAID).

If you know what the RAId device was called (eg /dev/md0) try

or

Did you tell the Ubuntu install about the RAID setup?

Hi Chris

Thanks for the reply. I was happily using Ubuntu 10.04 before (silly of me to upgrade when it aint broke). Ideally yes I would like to recover the data. I've had hhd drive issues in the past, hence I went and invested in multiple hhd's so that I could have a raid solution for my backups.

I'm fairly certain it used to be /dev/md0, but that is no longedr availble. There is however a md127, which was likely created due to my fiddling around trying to assemble the previous raid confiuration.

Here is the output for those 2 commands. I've also included the fdisk -l results should that help any.


milo@MiloBase:~$ sudo mdadm --detail /dev/md127
/dev/md127:
Version : 0.90
Creation Time : Mon Oct 4 09:19:09 2010
Raid Level : raid5
Used Dev Size : 488383936 (465.76 GiB 500.11 GB)
Raid Devices : 3
Total Devices : 3
Preferred Minor : 127
Persistence : Superblock is persistent

Update Time : Thu Jan 19 09:10:46 2012
State : active, Not Started
Active Devices : 3
Working Devices : 3
Failed Devices : 0
Spare Devices : 0

Layout : left-symmetric
Chunk Size : 64K

UUID : 11620724:37d9c8ac:c97fb52a:c30b6ca8
Events : 0.396

Number Major Minor RaidDevice State
0 8 1 0 active sync /dev/sda1
1 8 33 1 active sync /dev/sdc1
2 8 17 2 active sync /dev/sdb1
milo@MiloBase:~$ cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities :
md127 : inactive sdc1[1] sdb1[2] sda1[0]
1465151808 blocks

unused devices: <none>


milo@MiloBase:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500106780160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976771055 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x895ded5e

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 976768064 488384001 fd Linux raid autodetect

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x895ded5c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 976768064 488384001 fd Linux raid autodetect

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdc'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500106780160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976771055 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x895ded5f

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 63 976768064 488384001 fd Linux raid autodetect

Disk /dev/sdd: 320.1 GB, 320071851520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625140335 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3d3afb8f

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 2048 566408297 283203125 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdd2 566409214 617377791 25484289 5 Extended
/dev/sdd3 617377950 625137344 3879697+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdd5 566409216 608993279 21292032 83 Linux
/dev/sdd6 608995328 617377791 4191232 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Anyone out there able to help? Really don't want to loose all my data! Your help is needed and appreciated.