How to remove Linux software RAID MD device

mdadmopensusepartitioningraid

I'm trying to install openSUSE 12.3 on the new server. It is this machine.

There are 2 HDDs connected to the SAS controller. What I want to achieve is a NON-RAID configuration where 1.HDD is used for swap and root partitions and 2.HDD will contain /home partition. But when I start setup process I can see that partitioning utility shows that there are present 4 md devices in the system like: /dev/md124 …

Two of those devices can be removed but remaining ones cannot. I have also tried the GParted live distro to remove those partitions and create desired layout but when I committed all of the changes there it ended up with error. So the new partitions were not created.

Best Answer

Well, this is how I solved my problem. I found some steps how to remove MD device.

  1. In the openSUSE 12.3 installer, switch to the console.
  2. List your devices: # df -kh
  3. Make sure the devices are unmounted: # umount /dev/md124
  4. Check the details: # mdadm --detail /dev/md124
  5. Stop the device: # mdadm -S /dev/md124
  6. Zero out the superblocks of physical devices that belong to the MD device:
    # mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdb1
  7. Switch back to the installer.
  8. In the partitioning part of installer, refresh devices.
  9. The MD devices should not be there now.
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