Linux RAID - recreate from scratch

**Admin** · 03-Dec-2006, 11:07 PM

How to recreate the raid devices on a Linux system if you are booting from rescue media or alternate system (such as a CDROM based distro like Knoppix).

I recently had to boot a system from alternate media to repair some configuration problems on the system. The disks are LVM on top of software RAID 1. The rescue media didn't detect or recreate the RAID devices so the LVM volumes (and thus the system data) were not available.

To recreate the RAID partition, use the mdadm command like this (only do this if /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf is empty or isn't working).

echo DEVICE partitions > /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
/sbin/mdadm --examine --scan >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
/sbin/mdadm --assemble --scan

Then, LVM will work with just a couple more commands. Note that vgscan writes the lvmtab files to /etc and about 500KB per volume group will be required. This was an issue on my Knoppix 3.2 rescue platform.

vgscan

Code:

vgchange -ay

To list the logical volumes use

Code:

 sudo /usr/sbin/lvm lvscan

03-Dec-2006, 11:07 PM	#1 (permalink)
Admin Administrator Posts: 876 Join Date: Oct 2005 Rep Power: 10 IM:	Linux RAID - recreate from scratch How to recreate the raid devices on a Linux system if you are booting from rescue media or alternate system (such as a CDROM based distro like Knoppix). I recently had to boot a system from alternate media to repair some configuration problems on the system. The disks are LVM on top of software RAID 1. The rescue media didn't detect or recreate the RAID devices so the LVM volumes (and thus the system data) were not available. To recreate the RAID partition, use the mdadm command like this (only do this if /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf is empty or isn't working). echo DEVICE partitions > /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf /sbin/mdadm --examine --scan >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf /sbin/mdadm --assemble --scan Then, LVM will work with just a couple more commands. Note that vgscan writes the lvmtab files to /etc and about 500KB per volume group will be required. This was an issue on my Knoppix 3.2 rescue platform. vgscan Code: vgchange -ay To list the logical volumes use Code: sudo /usr/sbin/lvm lvscan

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