From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Marcin Krol Subject: Deleting mdadm RAID arrays Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 11:42:19 +0100 Message-ID: <200802051142.19625.admin@domeny.pl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-raid.ids Hello everyone, I have had a problem with RAID array (udev messed up disk names, I've had RAID on disks only, without raid partitions) on Debian Etch server with 6 disks and so I decided to rearrange this. Deleted the disks from (2 RAID-5) arrays, deleted the md* devices from /dev, created /dev/sd[a-f]1 Linux raid auto-detect partitions and rebooted the host. Now the mdadm startup script is writing in loop a message like "mdadm: warning: /dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1 have similar superblocks. If they are not identical, --zero the superblock ... " The host can't boot up now because of this. If I boot the server with some disks, I can't even zero that superblock: % mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdb1 mdadm: Couldn't open /dev/sdb1 for write - not zeroing It's the same even after: % mdadm --manage /dev/md2 --fail /dev/sdb1 mdadm: set /dev/sdb1 faulty in /dev/md2 Now, I have NEVER created /dev/md2 array, yet it show up automatically! % cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid1] md2 : active(auto-read-only) raid1 sdb1[1] 390708736 blocks [3/1] [_U_] md1 : inactive sda1[2] 390708736 blocks unused devices: Questions: 1. Where this info on array resides?! I have deleted /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf and /dev/md devices and yet it comes seemingly out of nowhere. 2. How can I delete that damn array so it doesn't hang my server up in a loop? -- Marcin Krol