Software RAID can't createdevmd1

Hi,

I hope someone can help me with my software RAID problem. In a nutshell I can createdev-md0 using either mkraid or mdadm. However I can't createdev-md1 ordev-md2. I'm told by both programs that there is no such file or directory. I've checked the syntax and parameters and can't find anything wrong.

Details ========

The distribution is Mandrake Linux 2006. However, I downloaded the 2.6.16.16 kernel source and re-compiled it to include direct support for all the IDE controller cards, Reiserfs filesystem and RAID support. The modified kernel boots up OK.

I have three hard drives in the machine, each on a different IDE controller. HDA is 120GB HDE is 152GB HDI is 149GB

I started the linux installation from scratch. Using Diskdrake, I configured the drives as per the following: HDA = primary parbreastion formatted Reiserfs for entire disk (114GB), hda1 HDE = primary parbreastion formatted Reiserfs, 100MB, hde1 extended parbreastion formatted Reiserfs, 114GB, hde5 extended parbreastion formatted Reiserfs, 34GB, hde6 primary parbreastion formatted native ext2, 3.6GB, root mount point, hde4 HDI = primary parbreastion formatted Reiserfs, 100MB, hdi1 extented parbreastion formatted Reiserfs, 114GB, hdi5 extended parbreastion formatted Reiserfs, 34GB, hdi6

Note: I also tried the configuration where all parbreastions are primary and no extended parbreastions.

I installed the OS on to hde4 so that I didn't have to worry about it while I was creating the arrays. I plan to copy it over todev-md0 once everything is setup. Then I'll have two copies of the OS that I can boot to, one version on the RAID and another that isn't.

My aim is to create 3 RAID arrays:dev-md0 is a RAID 5 array using the 3 114GB parbreastions - hda1,hde5,hdi5. It will eventually have the OS and data files on it.

dev-md1 is a RAID 1 array using the 2 100MB parbreastions - hde1, hdi1. It will store the modified boot kernel 2.6.16.16 so that LILO can see it.

dev-md2 is a RAID 1 array using the remaining 34GB parbreastions - hde6, hdi6. I just wanted to make use of the remaining space on the drives.

All goes well up to the point of making the RAIDS. I'll reference mdadm but I've includedetc-raidtab at the end of the post as well. I start withdev-md0: mdadm -Cvdev-md0 -l5 -n3 -c32dev-hda1dev-hde5dev-hdi5 This gets constructed without any problems.

Now fordev-md1: mdadm -Cvdev-md1 -l1 -n2 -c32dev-hde1dev-hdi1 mdadm tells me that: mdadm: error openingdev-md1: No such file or directory

The story is the same fordev-md2 and the response from mkraid.

Here's theetc-raidtab # md0 is the root array, about 240GB raiddevdev-md0 raid-level 5 nr-raid-disks 3 nr-spare-disks 0 persistent-superblock 1 parity-algorithm left-symmetric chunk-size 32 devicedev-hda1 raid-disk 0 devicedev-hde5 raid-disk 1 devicedev-hdi5 raid-disk 2

# md1 is the boot kernel array, about 100MB raiddevdev-md1 raid-level 1 nr-raid-disks 2 nr-spare-disks 0 persistent-superblock 1 chunk-size 32 devicedev-hde1 raid-disk 0 devicedev-hdi1 raid-disk 1

# md2 is a spare mirror, about 34GB raiddevdev-md2 raid-level 1 nr-raid-disks 2 nr-spare-disks 0 persistent-superblock 1 chunk-size 32 devicedev-hde6 raid-disk 0 devicedev-hdi6 raid-disk 1

Your thoughts on this matter would be much appreciated. I'm either trying to do something that can't be done or I'm missing a step.

Thanks for your help.

Dominic