Hello?  Anyone?  I'm flummoxed, here.  I tried to write in a manual
assembly of the arrays in the initrd, but so far I haven't been able to get
it to work.  One way or another, it just hangs when running
/scripts/local-top/mdadm in the initrd.  Even `ls -1 /dev/sd*` returns an
error.

	It's also really odd that I can assemble and mount the root and boot
arrays, but under Ubuntu I can't even assemble the swap array.  It complains
that the first member of the array is busy and refuses to start /dev/md3.
The results of --examine look identical to those listed below, except of
course for the partition specific entries (size, drive and array UUID,
events, etc).

	I really need to get this machine back on line, and any suggestions

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Ok.  

1) Get business card image from the link provided and burn to CD and
boot of it.

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

2) Select Advanced Options then expert install.
3) Set Language etc.
4) When it asks to select installer components select "Network Console"
and continue.
5) Configure the network (if you haven't already),
6) In the menu select "Continue installation remotely using ssh and
follow the instructions to connect in via ssh from your desired
workstation and continue.
7) Select exit to shell
8) insert the appropriate raid modules: 'modprobe raidX' where X is the
raid levels you use for each raid level you use.
9) use mdadm to manually assemble the necessary root, /boot and /var
arrays.
10) If your root fs is in LVM do: "modprobe dm_mod" followed by 
"vgchange -ay" 
11) make a target directory: "mkdir /target"
12) mount the root filesystem on /target: mount /dev/<rootfs> /target
13) bind mount the dev sys and proc virtual filesystems:
	"mount -o bind /dev /target/dev"
	"mount -o bind /sys /target/sys"
	"mount -o bind /proc /target/proc"
14) Chroot: chroot /target /bin/bash
15) mount /boot /usr /var as needed.
16) update your mdadm.conf and /etc/fstab etc (ideally use labels for
root and boot or fs UUID's), and any other stuff like installing the
latest mdadm (apt|aptitude should work fine if your internet connected).
***See my notes below.
17) update your grub config, and run update-grub.
18) update your initrd image: "mkinitramfs -k all"
19) unmount the fs's you mounted in the chroot
20) umount /target/proc /target/sys and /target/dev.
21) reboot and try it out.

*** You might want to post your real mdadm.conf at this point.  If your
not sure about what the issue is, then perhaps IRC (does linux-raid have
This is because ubuntu probably picks up the first swap partition it
mdadm shouldn't care unless you've changed the "DEVICE partitions" line
It seems odd to me that all the raid volumes are named "Backup".
Perhaps mdadm doesn't like the ...
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*clean* since the ubuntu live cd's been using one of those component


-- 
Daniel Reurich.

Centurion Computer Technology (2005) Ltd
Mobile 021 797 722



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