Despite all the help I had, way back in October 2012, I still never fixed that RAID1. At this point I think I know what went wrong. I would like to try to fix it so that I can upgrade the Ubuntu LTS version -- I'm still using 12.04.5 LTS. See the output below from df, parted -l, /proc/mdstat and /etc/fstab. There is a /boot directory, but that is in the / partition. The /boot partition is not mounted and it isn't in the RAID1. I have been doing software updates, and kernels have been installed, but the only one I can boot from is the one I installed originally. I assume that since the /boot partition isn't mounted, the dozen or so kernels I see are in the /boot directory in the / partition, and there are 341 MB of files in there now. I'm hoping there is a way to get the appropriate files into the /boot partition, get that mounted, get rid of the /boot directory in the / partition and have the /boot partition mirrored on the two drives. Is there hope? Do any of you know how I should proceed? Mike $ df -HT Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/md1 ext4 3.0T 296G 2.6T 11% / udev devtmpfs 8.4G 13k 8.4G 1% /dev tmpfs tmpfs 3.4G 906k 3.4G 1% /run none tmpfs 5.3M 0 5.3M 0% /run/lock none tmpfs 8.4G 52M 8.4G 1% /run/shm $ sudo parted -l Model: ATA ST3000DM001-9YN1 (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 3001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 10.5MB 220MB 210MB /boot bios_grub 2 220MB 34.6GB 34.4GB swap raid 3 34.6GB 3000GB 2966GB / raid Model: ATA ST3000DM001-9YN1 (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 3001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 10.5MB 220MB 210MB /boot bios_grub 2 220MB 34.6GB 34.4GB swap raid 3 34.6GB 3000GB 2966GB / raid Model: Linux Software RAID Array (md) Disk /dev/md0: 34.4GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: loop Number Start End Size File system Flags 1 0.00B 34.4GB 34.4GB linux-swap(v1) Model: Linux Software RAID Array (md) Disk /dev/md1: 2966GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: loop Number Start End Size File system Flags 1 0.00B 2966GB 2966GB ext4 $ cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10] md1 : active raid1 sda3[0] sdb3[1] 2896392511 blocks super 1.2 [2/2] [UU] md0 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1] 33553336 blocks super 1.2 [2/2] [UU] unused devices: <none> # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 # / was on /dev/md1 during installation UUID=f8a6d38d-3dd0-465e-b622-1cffdde52c1b / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # swap was on /dev/md0 during installation UUID=f8be4924-e4a8-20ba-f284-3a90581a5322 none swap sw 0 0 On Fri, 5 Oct 2012, Mike Miller wrote: > On Fri, 5 Oct 2012, ron at ron-l-j.com wrote: > >> The first thing I would try is booting into a shell and running fsck on >> your boot disk. >> Reboot the machine and press e in the grub screen for edit. >> Go to the kernel line and press e to edit that line. >> Then add to the kernel line >> >> init=/bin/bash >> >> when you boot you go straight to the shell. >> then do a file system check on your boot drive >> fsck -t ext3 /dev/sdax >> t is for file system type in this case ext3 >> and the x in sdax is your partition number. >> sda is for sata drives, if you have an ide drive use hdax >> >> Most of the time its a file system error and was very common when I was >> doing raid arrays in my advanced linux classes. Bad super block is also >> common. >> If you are still having troubles run fsck from a live cd/usb. But you will >> have to run the cd in live mode, mount the offending drive, and chroot >> into the drive. >> As a last resort you can update-grub from the live cd after you have >> chroot'ed into you installed environment. >> Let me know what you encounter. > > > Thanks, Ron. (I'm cc'ing you in case you are doing digests only and want to > see this before the digest comes in.) > > Did you see that I was able to boot up to the window manager login prompt > using an earlier version of the kernel? Can I just take it from there? > > My impression right now is that the problem was caused by my failure to > reboot for weeks after installing some packages that required rebooting. Then > I installed 400 more packages before rebooting. Is that possibly the cause > of my troubles? Could it be that I just need to fix the packages and reboot? > > The other issue is that I have a RAID1, so mirrored drives, and I think that > means I don't want to fsck them one at a time. df shows this: > > $ sudo df -HT > Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on > /dev/md1 ext4 3.0T 220G 2.6T 8% / > udev devtmpfs 8.4G 13k 8.4G 1% /dev > tmpfs tmpfs 3.4G 832k 3.4G 1% /run > none tmpfs 5.3M 0 5.3M 0% /run/lock > none tmpfs 8.4G 148k 8.4G 1% /run/shm > > Does that mean I would fsck /dev/md1? > > Thanks again. I really appreciate your taking the time to reply. > > (One thing I've learned -- I should run package-manager daily and try to > reboot soon when it is required. I often have a lot of stuff running that I > don't want to kill, so reboots are a hassle.) > > Mike >