cat /proc/mdstat
is your best friend when running mdm raid.  It tells you the current state of each "drive" as well as the state of the components.  


Example from my machine:
Personalities : [raid1]
md0 : active raid1 sda3[1]
      243175808 blocks [2/1] [_U]

unused devices: <none>

I have one raid one device, md0.  It has one dead device (the _).  
 

--- 
Wayne Johnson,                         | There are two kinds of people: Those 
3943 Penn Ave. N.          | who say to God, "Thy will be done," 
Minneapolis, MN 55412-1908 | and those to whom God says, "All right, 
(612) 522-7003                         | then,  have it your way." --C.S. Lewis



>________________________________
> From: Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com>
>To: TCLUG Mailing List <tclug-list at mn-linux.org> 
>Sent: Monday, April 2, 2012 9:18 AM
>Subject: Re: [tclug-list] testing that RAID1 is working using mdadm
> 
>On Sun, 1 Apr 2012, Mr. B-o-B wrote:
>
>> 1)    The Drive is Dead
>> 2)    The Drive is Disconnected
>> 3)    Something went terribly wrong, and was never set-up correctly.
>
>I'll be studying this further, but I would put my money on "1" because I remember hearing a strange noise coming from inside the box a few weeks ago.  At the time I wondered if it was one of the HDDs.  I wasn't sure how to check if they both were working.  Then I forgot about it until now.
>
>That machine is important to me, but not as important as the other machine I am about to set up.  In fact, the RAID1 on the machine in question was done partly as practice for setting up this other machine.
>
>Thanks *very* much, Mr. B-o-B for your help with this.  You have done a lot for me and I really appreciate it.
>
>Mike
>_______________________________________________
>TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
>tclug-list at mn-linux.org
>http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>
>
>
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