Software RAID FAILED!

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Last week I had a software RAID 1 set fail. It's working now but I am
wondering what went wrong. I also want to know why I was unable to reboot.

WHAT I'VE GOT
1. CentOS 4.2
2. /dev/md0 = boot, ext3
3. /dev/md1 = LVM, ext3, everything else

When I tried to reboot I got something like "Grub loading stage 2". Then
it went into a grub command shell. I tried booting off one drive and
then the other. One gave me the above message "Grub loading stage 2" and
the other gave me a screen of "grub, grub, grub etc..."

After a few hours of pocking this and that I was able to find some info
on the net. I had to boot the CentOS CD and go into rescue mode. I
manually setup RAID and rebuilt /dev/md0 and /dev/md1. The system is now
up and running.

QUESTIONS
1. Why did it fail ( drives seem to be fine )
2. Why didn't the system reboot from /dev/md0
3. Shouldn't one drive still work after something goes wrong?

Question 2 is my big problem. If /boot is on /dev/md0 (RAID1), why
didn't the system boot?

Adam suggested manually installing grub on both drives. This would
suggest that placing /boot on RAID doesn't work. That grub either didn't
get installed on one of the drives or it doesn't know what to do with
/dev/md0.

Again, I didn't get a boot menu. I got a grub shell off one drive and
the other just gave me a bunch of grub junk.

Question 3 is also a problem. Why use software RAID 1 if both drives
won't boot when something goes wrong?

If anyone has anything to add let me know. I'll be searching Google and
my system log's for answers. I hope to have some of this figured out by
Friday.
- --
You can get my public PGP key at https://keyserver.pgp.com
http://www.digitaloverload.net
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Received on Mon Apr 24 11:10:25 2006