Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [O/T] RAID help - now won't boot

[J. Roeleveld]

Mick <michaelkintzios@×××××.com> wrote:
>On Sunday 20 Oct 2013 15:31:12 joost@××××××××.org wrote:
>
>> I would suggest trying it by usong the older metadata format.
>> Check the man pages, but I thinl it would be --metadata=0.90 (or
>similar)
>> during creation. That might put the metadata at the end, rather then
>at
>> the front. (Or it's the other way round and new metadata does it at
>the
>> end.)
>>
>> --
>> Joost
>> Ps. I have never tried it this way (full disk raid for boot device)
>using
>> linux software raid.
>
>Ha!  Yes, this made a difference, thanks!  With metadata 0.90 I can see
>the
>same partitions I set up on /dev/md0, also on /dev/sda and /dev/sdb.
>The only
>problem now is that the Ubuntu server CD wants to format /dev/sda2 as
>swap and
>fails at that stage.  :-/
>
>Not sure how to by-pass this.
>
>I may also try metadata=1.0 to see if this makes a difference, which
>also
>positions the RAID data superblock at the end of the device:
>
>Sub-Version	 Superblock Position on Device
>-----------  -----------------------------
>0.9	         At the end of the device
>1.0	         At the end of the device
>1.1	         At the beginning of the device
>1.2	         4K from the beginning of the device
>
>--
>Regards,
>Mick

To bypass the swap format you could try either deselecting the format option (if it exists) or setting the partition type to something else.
The partition type can be set back to swap later from a livecd without having to reinstall.

Other option: 
1 install to single disk

2 using sysresccd create a degraded raid1 using the 2nd drive

3 copy the partitions and date from drive 1 to the degraded raid device

4 add disk 1 to the raid

5 wait for the raid device is synchronized

6 change fstab and grub config to reflect the new disklayout

--
Joost
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.