Thank you for your response.  My hat is off to you.  Few people
return such thorough and detailed posts.

quoted text
> > 	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.
> >
> 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.

	/var is just part of the main array.  Only /boot and the swap area
have their own partitions.  Interestingly enough, the installer kernel shows
the drives to be /dev/hda and /dev/hdb, again.  Apparently the installer
uses an older kernel?  Oh, and it can assemble the third array (the swap
area) just fine, or at least it says it can:

~ # mdadm -Dt /dev/md3
/dev/md3:
        Version : 1.02
  Creation Time : Sun Dec 20 05:05:08 2009
     Raid Level : raid1
     Array Size : 204796548 (195.31 GiB 209.71 GB)
  Used Dev Size : 204796548 (195.31 GiB 209.71 GB)
   Raid Devices : 2
  Total Devices : 2
    Persistence : Superblock is persistent

  Intent Bitmap : Internal

    Update Time : Mon May 10 01:08:00 2010
          State : active
 Active Devices : 2
Working Devices : 2
 Failed Devices : 0
  Spare Devices : 0

           Name : 'Backup':3
           UUID : 3615c4a2:33786b6d:b13863d9:458cd054
         Events : 66

    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       2       3        3        0      active sync   /dev/hda3
       1       3       67        1      active sync   /dev/hdb3

quoted text
> 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

	'No joy:

~ # mount -o -v  /dev/md1 /target
mount: mounting /dev/md1 on /target failed: Invalid argument

	So now, what?  I can mount the arrays just fine under the Ubuntu
live CD, but not this one.

quoted text
> 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).

	Uh-uh, again.  Neither apt-get nor aptitude seem to be on the CD, at
least not when installing this way.

quoted text
> > 	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).
> >
> This is because ubuntu probably picks up the first swap partition it
> finds and uses it.

	It doesn't mention it when I issue `mount` or lsof.  What's more, it
gives the same error for both partitions.  Also, as I mentioned, it doesn't
show any errors when I issue `sudo mdadm --examine [sda3|sdb3]`.  Finally,
it assembles without complaint under the Debian live CD.

quoted text
> It seems odd to me that all the raid volumes are named "Backup".
> Perhaps mdadm doesn't like the name collision.

	First of all, isn't that the homehost name?  If so, it is *SUPPOSED*
to be the same for all three.  Secondly, it assembled just fine under the
old kernel and mdadm, as I mentioned.  Thirdly, if it were the case, I would
expect it to assemble at least the first target without complaint.  Finally,
the names aren't the same.  They are 'Backup':1, 'Backup':2, and 'Backup':3

quoted text
> Perhaps you need to recreate some of them with a different name.  I'd
> suggest recreating the raid1 volumes with different names and the
> --assume-clean flag (except the swap one which won't be since the ubuntu
> live cd's been messing with one of those component partitions).

	I think before I try something like that, I would just trash one
element of each array, assemble the arrays broken with just one element, and
copy over the files to the "new" partitions, and go from there.

quoted text
> I hope this helps.

	Well, I'm getting somewhere.  I'm just not sure where, if I can't
get mount to work.

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