>Advice: Buy a new big disk and use rsync to make a copy of disks.
>run it every night using cron.
>
>Our insurance agent has us set him up with a back up on 
>separate computer.
>Theives broke into his office and took everyting.  If we 
>hadn't put his old 
>disks on the self - he would be out of business.
>
>This is where it gets interesting.   If it is like SL5.6 you 
>are done because 
>you can't become root due to some problem in the code.   All 
>you get is a 
>couple of messages.   This was a problem I have had due to 
>disk failures in 
>the last year and on my wish list for 6.0. 
>

Can you explain what you mean by this?

>I really think this needs to be fixed.  
>
>Every Unix and Linux system I have used in the last 30 years 
>you were able to 
>become root in a system error.   Even System V.  
>
>If you are in a corner you can fix almost any problem but you 
>need to be able 
>to set user to root.
>
>Good Luck
>
>Larry Linder
>
>On Wednesday 22 December 2010 2:42 pm, Pann McCuaig wrote:
>> On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 13:00, Phong Nguyen wrote:
>> > Have you tried determining what's in mdadm.conf in the 
>initrd file? It
>> > might be getting some incorrect assembly instructions for md0.
>>
>> This may well be the issue. Other than /etc/modprobe.conf (which is
>> obvious from the mkinitrd man page) and /etc/mdadm.conf, 
>what does the
>> initrd file look at (or where can I find out)?
>>
>> > On 22 Dec 2010, at 1203, Pann McCuaig wrote:
>> > > Greetings SL fans,
>> > >
>> > > Sorry for the length of this post, but I'm hoping 
>someone can come to
>> > > my rescue and want to provide sufficient context.
>> > >
>> > > Recently I had a hard drive failure on a Sun X4600 box 
>running SL4.8.
>> > > The box has four drives; the drive that failed was /boot 
>(only). The
>> > > other three drives make up /dev/md0.
>> > >
>> > > The /boot drive was not backed up (headsmack!).
>> > >
>> > > I have created a rescue USB stick based on the System 
>Rescue CD, which
>> > > boots via grub. I can boot the System Rescue CD 
>successfully, and it
>> > > sees /dev/md0, which I can then mount and read from and write to.
>> > >
>> > > I have attempted to create a kernel and initrd image to 
>add to the USB
>> > > stick that will boot the box as if the kernel and initrd 
>image were on
>> > > the failed (and now removed) boot drive.
>> > >
>> > > I built the kernel and initrd image on a box similar to 
>the box with
>> > > the failed hard drive. I replaced /etc/modprobe.conf 
>with the file from
>> > > the target server, and then did 'yum install 
>kernel-largesmp'. I copied
>> > > all the resulting kernel-related files from /boot to the 
>USB stick, as
>> > > well as the appropriate directory from /lib/modules.
>> > >
>> > > I then restored the helper box to its original state.
>> > >
>> > > I booted the System Rescue CD on the target system and copied the
>> > > /lib/modules directory into place on /dev/md0. I fixed 
>up grub/menu.lst
>> > > to have a stanza to boot the newly created SL4 kernel. I 
>rebooted the
>> > > box, and everything seemed to be going swimmingly, until . . .
>> > >
>> > > . . . the booted kernel seems unable to build /dev/md0 
>and the boot
>> > > process fails.
>> > >
>> > > In the original configuration, the boot drive was 
>/dev/sda, and the
>> > > drives making up the soft RAID partition were /dev/sdb, 
>dev/sdc, and
>> > > /dev/sdd.
>> > >
>> > > The System Rescue CD detects the USB stick as /dev/sda 
>and the three
>> > > SAS drives as sdb, sdc, and sdd. All is well.
>> > >
>> > > It's not clear to me what is going awry with the SL 
>kernel, but as
>> > > the boot verbiage scrolls by, I see /dev/sdc referenced 
>twice, and no
>> > > reference to /dev/sdd. When the kernel attempts to 
>assemble /dev/md0,
>> > > it uses /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, and /dev/sdc and this fails 
>and /dev/md0
>> > > cannot be mounted and the kernel panics.
>> > >
>> > > Help, please. Suggestions? Thanks.
>> > >
>> > > BTW, I've put both SL4.8 Disc One, and the SL4.8 Live CD 
>on a bootable
>> > > USB stick; both boot successfully, but I was unable to 
>find a way to
>> > > make either one recognize /dev/md0, much less "rescue" me.
>> > >
>> > > Cheers,
>> > > Pann
>

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