raidstart!  Horrible tool.  Throw it away.

consider it gone :)

You will need
   mdadm --assemble --force ....
to start this array as it seems to have suffered an unclean shutdown
while degraded.

hrm, seems to not want to 'fly' to be honest...


[root@survivor stef]# mdadm --detail /dev/md0
/dev/md0:
        Version : 00.90.00
  Creation Time : Fri Dec 20 14:45:52 2002
     Raid Level : raid5
    Device Size : 58633216 (55.92 GiB 60.04 GB)
   Raid Devices : 4
  Total Devices : 3
Preferred Minor : 0
    Persistence : Superblock is persistent

    Update Time : Tue Apr 15 17:45:24 2003
          State : dirty, no-errors
 Active Devices : 3
Working Devices : 3
 Failed Devices : 0
  Spare Devices : 0

         Layout : left-symmetric
     Chunk Size : 64K

    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       0      33        6        0      active sync  
/dev/ide/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/part6
       1      34        1        1      active sync  
/dev/ide/host2/bus1/target0/lun0/part1
       2       0        0       -1      removed
       3      57        1        3      active sync  
/dev/ide/host4/bus1/target0/lun0/part1
           UUID : 5bced80a:8f74bfa6:3e658b6a:46a5055d
         Events : 0.1895
[root@survivor stef]# mdadm --assemble --force /dev/md0
mdadm: device /dev/md0 already active - cannot assemble it
[root@survivor stef]# mdadm --manage /dev/md0 -a
/dev/ide/host4/bus0/target0/lun0/part2
mdadm: added /dev/ide/host4/bus0/target0/lun0/part2
[root@survivor stef]# mdadm --assemble --force /dev/md0
mdadm: device /dev/md0 already active - cannot assemble it
[root@survivor stef]# mdadm --detail /dev/md0
/dev/md0:
        Version : 00.90.00
  Creation Time : Fri Dec 20 14:45:52 2002
     Raid Level : raid5
    Device Size : 58633216 (55.92 GiB 60.04 GB)
   Raid Devices : 4
  Total Devices : 4
Preferred Minor : 0
    Persistence : Superblock is persistent

    Update Time : Tue Apr 15 17:45:24 2003
          State : dirty, no-errors
 Active Devices : 3
Working Devices : 4
 Failed Devices : 0
  Spare Devices : 1

         Layout : left-symmetric
     Chunk Size : 64K

    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       0      56        2        0       
/dev/ide/host4/bus0/target0/lun0/part2
       1      34        1        1      active sync  
/dev/ide/host2/bus1/target0/lun0/part1
       2       0        0       -1      removed
       3      57        1        3      active sync  
/dev/ide/host4/bus1/target0/lun0/part1
           UUID : 5bced80a:8f74bfa6:3e658b6a:46a5055d
         Events : 0.1895

surely, when i -a a drive into the array, it should
'fit into' the removed slot on item '2', or does it
do that already and i am reading the output wrong :\

quoted

is there anything else you need or would like ?

Well, an answer to my original question would be nice:-)  You should
have kernel logs of the time when you got "device busy" from "mdadm -a". 

ah this being the rub, there isnt any oops or anything
like that in the kernel log when i get the device busy,
not even a 'device currently locked' or 'missing device'
from what i can see. sorry :\

regards 
Stef Telford [off-list ref]