raid 1 software side.

[choppyfireballs]

Hm, so maybe it was created like that although that's very strange.

I don't know all i know was that it was working then i pulled out the hdd1 and it's been booting into degraded mode since. also i tried removing sdb2 from the md/0 array it would not let me, it said it did not exist sdb2 rather.

[darkod]

Try working for a while from live mode. In most cases it will not allow you to touch system files while you are running it from hdd.

[choppyfireballs]

ok and by live i assume you mean like live cd

[darkod]

ok and by live i assume you mean like live cd

Yeah. And sorry, I forgot to mention, to manipulate mdadm from live mode you will need to install the package first because it's not on the cd:
sudo apt-get install mdadm

You need to do that after every reboot into live mode because it doesn't keep the changes.

After the package is present, you can manipulate arrays.

[choppyfireballs]

Yeah. And sorry, I forgot to mention, to manipulate mdadm from live mode you will need to install the package first because it's not on the cd:
sudo apt-get install mdadm

You need to do that after every reboot into live mode because it doesn't keep the changes.

After the package is present, you can manipulate arrays.

ok thanks ill poke at that for a while at least it's a direction now

[darkod]

Also it wouldn't hurt double checking that all partitions are still of linux raid type. You can do that with:
sudo fdisk -l

All four partition included in the array need to have Linux RAID type.

[choppyfireballs]

Ok so here's where I'm at in the live cd, I installed mdadm and opened up disk utility because mdadm command line was not seeing any raids. disk utility can see the raid array but is showing it as offline, when i try to turn it on it says "not enough components available to start the RAID array. If i boot back onto the hdd i can see that both raid arrays are up and that sdb1 & 2 are online health but not attached. when i try to attach it is says "error adding spare: mdadm exited with exit code 1:mdadm:/dev/sda2 reports being an active member for /dev/md1 but a --re--add fails. if i go into boot order and I try to boot to sata0 which is disk 1 raid says to me on startup that there is one or more degraded drives and boots in degraded mode.

[darkod]

OK, hold on. You are trying too much at the same time. Lets take it slow.

Boot from the hdd, and first check if all partitions are linux raid type, as I already said:
sudo fdisk -l

Then, check the arrays:
cat /proc/mdstat

After that we will see what to do. We can consider disk /dev/sdb as failed and faulty, and act like we are replacing it with a new one.

[choppyfireballs]

OK, hold on. You are trying too much at the same time. Lets take it slow.

Boot from the hdd, and first check if all partitions are linux raid type, as I already said:
sudo fdisk -l

Then, check the arrays:
cat /proc/mdstat

After that we will see what to do. We can consider disk /dev/sdb as failed and faulty, and act like we are replacing it with a new one.

Ok I ran fdisk and for /dev/md0 & 1 it says that "/dev/md0 (or 1) doesn't contain a vlid partition table" everything else looks ok there.

cat /proc/mdstat ouputs this

md1: active raid1 sdb2[1]
4104180 blocks super 1.2 [2/1][_U]
md0: active raid1 sdb1 [1]
972654456 blocks super 1.2 [2/1] [_U]

[darkod]

OK. It shows only /dev/sdb in /proc/mdstat but in this moment also /dev/sda is connected, right?

Lets try to add /dev/sda as a new disk after one failed. Also, not to confuse it with the previous raid data, lets zero the superblock.

sudo mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sda1
sudo mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sda2

Add sda1 to md0:
sudo mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --add /dev/sda1

Did it work (some message like re-added /dev/sda1) or it reported an error?
If it worked check /proc/mdstat again, does it show /dev/sda1 as member of md0 and syncing?