Thread: Can a system automatically RAID itself?

(this such weird question wasn't sure ask it. here goes.)

when installed system (xubuntu 9.04 x64) several months ago, had 2 identical sata hard drives, didn't raid1 mirror because didn't want wipe out old os (freebsd) on second drive in case needed retrieve it. installed xubuntu on first drive (sda) , time, second drive (sdb) has been running unused, , fdisk showed freebsd partition still there.

couple weeks ago, separate backup server failed, short-term backup did 'dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb' make exact copy of xubuntu install on drive upon drive b (the former freebsd drive), mounted /dev/sdb1 on /mnt make sure worked successfully. far good, still didn't set raid stuff.

several days later, needed reboot because of security upgrade, , when logged out, gui froze up. thinking not of it, restarted system, , came fine. next day, discovered missing several days worth of email , recent files. in fact, had been reverted state several days earlier --- think day copied first drive second one. files created in interim gone, , files deleted in interim back. if first drive 'restored' second 1 without knowledge.

doing testing now, find if create new file on /dev/sda1 , mount /dev/sdb1, file exists on sdb1. it's if they're acting raid1 mirror, without telling so. decide raid1 because sees there 2 identically partitioned drives? seems dangerous. , if in raid mirror, why let me mount them separately? it's strange.

ideas? don't mind if it's decided raid, want make sure it's not going 'restore' more current filesystem older 1 again, if that's indeed happened.

thanks.

off hand not 2 drives raid themselves. software raid no. fakeraid if drives raided mb raid bios. try typing following in terminal: sudo blkid

if have raid partitions identified such block devices.

think more when copied drive, partitions copied verbatim including uuid's. in case, since grub searches boot drive uuid never know 1 may booting (the original or copy). might have unplug copy protect system schizoid behavior.

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