Re: Installing grub2 with /boot on software raid

[Wesley PA4WDH]

Hi All,

I just hit a new problem with my setup.

Since boot and root where working fine i started to use the rest of the disk. I 
created some extra partitions and created raid's from them:

These are the partitions of sda, sdb is the same:
Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf96d7342

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048      264191      131072   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda2          264192     8652799     4194304   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda3         8652800  1953525167   972436184    5  Extended
/dev/sda5         8654848   428085247   209715200   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda6       428087296   847517695   209715200   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda7       847519744  1266950143   209715200   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda8      1266952192  1686382591   209715200   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda9      1686384640  1953525167   133570264   fd  Linux raid autodetect

Sda3 upto sda9 are new.

These are the md devices from /proc/mdstat:
md1 : active raid1 sdb2[1] sda2[0]
      4194240 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md5 : active raid1 sdb5[1] sda5[0]
      209715136 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md6 : active raid1 sdb6[1] sda6[0]
      209715136 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md7 : active raid1 sdb7[1] sda7[0]
      209715136 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md8 : active raid1 sdb8[1] sda8[0]
      209715136 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md9 : active raid1 sdb9[1] sda9[0]
      133570176 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md0 : active raid1 sdb1[1] sda1[0]
      131008 blocks [2/2] [UU]

All md5 upto md9 are all formatted with ext3, that not how i want to use them, 
but i just wanted to make sure there's a valid filesystem on them.

When i reboot i end up in a rescue shell, and this a log such a rescue session:

GRUB loading.
Welcome to GRUB!

error: file `/grub2/i386-pc/normal.mod' not found.
Entering rescue mode...
grub rescue> ls
(md/md8) (md/md7) (md/md6) (md/md5) (md/md1) (md/md0) (md/md9) (hd0) (hd0,msdos
9) (hd0,msdos8) (hd0,msdos7) (hd0,msdos6) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1
) (hd1) (hd1,msdos9) (hd1,msdos8) (hd1,msdos7) (hd1,msdos6) (hd1,msdos5) (hd1,m
sdos2) (hd1,msdos1) (hd2) (hd3) (hd4) (hd5) (hd6) (hd7) (hd8) (hd9) (hd10) (hd1
1) (hd12) (hd13) (hd14) (hd15)
grub rescue> ls (md/md0)/
error: unknown filesystem.
grub rescue> ls (hd0,1)/
./ ../ lost+found/ grub2/ boot vmlinuz-3.8.13 .keep vmlinuz-3.8.13-64bit
grub rescue> set prefix=(hd0,1)/grub2
grub rescue> insmod normal
grub rescue> normal
grub> ls (md/md0)/
error: unknown filesystem.
grub> insmod mdraid09
grub> ls (md/md0)/
error: unknown filesystem.
grub> ls (hd0,1)/
lost+found/ grub2/ boot vmlinuz-3.8.13 vmlinuz-3.8.13-64bit
grub> linux (hd0,1)/vmlinuz-3.8.13-64bit $kernel_parameters
grub> boot


$kernel_parameters is a variable i set with all required kernel parameters: 
root=/dev/md1 console=ttyS0,19200n8 clocksource=hpet

Somehow it's unable to read the md devices, but it is able to read from hd0,1 
(the real partition for /boot). I did try to re-install grub2 but that didn't 
change the behavior.

Any suggestions on how to fix this ?

Thanks in advance.

Wesley