[realNoName]

i have 4 hdd's that i want to make into a raid 5 on my linux (debian) box but am still new to linux and i cant really find anything online or at least i cant make it work so does anyone know how to do this?

[realNoName]

ok i think i got it made with

Quote

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=5 --raid-devices=4 /dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd

and i used fdisk to make it ntfs (i think i did it right) but i cant mount it

fdisk says:

Quote

Disk /dev/md0: 1500.3 GB, 1500323315712 bytes
2 heads, 4 sectors/track, 366289872 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8 * 512 = 4096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/md0p1 1 366289872 1465159486 86 NTFS volume set

when i do a mount this is what i get

Quote

cerebellum:~# mount -t ntfs /dev/md0 /mnt/md0
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/md0,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

[MorphiusFaydal]

You don't want to be using NTFS... Linux can not install to that partition, that's a Windows filesystem (and it's a horrible filesystem to begin with...). If you're going use it in Linux, I would recommend a filesystem such as ext3 of JFS. Use the command mkfs.ext2 -j /dev/md0 to make it ext3 or mkfs.jfs /dev/md0 to make it JFS.

Also, I think you'll need to fdisk all four drives and create a partition on them first. Just create a whole-disk partition of type 83 (it should say Linux), then create the array (the mdadm command you used is correct), and then format the array with one of the mkfs commands I gave you.

This post has been edited by MorphiusFaydal: 08 June 2008 - 04:21 PM

[realNoName]

yea i know that ntfs is a windows thing but the reason i was going to use it because i was going to do a duel boot but i changed my mind again any ways i did change it to 83 but i am still having a problem mounting it but i think i found out why when i do a mdadm --detail /dev/md0 it says disk 4 is rebuilding so thats my guess on why its not mounting (just a guess i could be wrong) the only thing i dont under stand why it would be be rebuilding i haven't done anything with it

This post has been edited by realNoName: 08 June 2008 - 05:36 PM

[MorphiusFaydal]

IIRC, a rebuild will take place when you first create the array.

And if you want to share the array with Windows on the same box in a dual-boot situation, you'll need hardware RAID.

[realNoName]

thats the main reason why i decided not to duel boot... and i found out that one of the hdds is bad so now its down to 3 hdd's

[realNoName]

ok this is driving me nuts how do you delete the raid set with mdadm

[realNoName]

once again i think i got it