Bach On

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Everything posted by Bach On

  1. Guys, I'm not as dense as I probably appear, but I admit to some confusion. As you know, there are two pages in the BIOS concerning drives. The first page sets the motherboard to configure the ports and find the drives. My motherboard can do this automatically, or manually. I've had it set to do so automatically. dgaschk seems to be telling me to disable all the hard drives. But the USB flash drive never shows up on this page. I do not see how the SATA ports can find my three 2Tb drives if I do not have the ports set. So I cannot see how UNRAID could find the drives. It is on another page of the BIOS where I set the boot priorities. I know how to set the boot priority. But what I think I'm hearing about this is two different things. One person is saying the motherboard will see the 4 Gb. USB memory stick as a regular hard drive. The readme file seems to be telling me to set the USB port as the first priority. I KNOW you guys are REALLY trying to help. And I really do appreciate it!!! The confusion on my end is that you guys are providing steps for me to follow. But you are not always indicating on which of the pages these steps should be performed. Do you see my point? Bach On
  2. So I disable all the hard drives in the BIOS. But are you saying the USB flash drive should appear as a drive in the BIOS? I have USB device as the first drive in my stack. And the motherboard finds it during booting. But it never actually shows up in the BIOS. Bach On
  3. hlidskialf, I understand your second point: setting the USB device as the priority drive. But I'm not certain I get the first point: setting the hard drive as the primary boot device. It looks to me that those two things contradict one another. Would you mind explaining? The way I'm seeing it, I'm planning to use the hard drives (3) as the drives for UNRAID. They won't actually be boot devices. Only the USB stick will be a boot device. What am I missing? This motherboard has six SATA ports. Two run off the onchip RAID controller, but the controller can be cut OFF or ON. Two of the drives are showing up in the BIOS. The third only shows up in the RAID section. I'm assuming I'll need to have all three hard drives show up in the BIOS before I can configure UNRAID. My issue is that I cannot get UNRAID to start at all. Thanks for the feedback. Hope you won't mind giving a little more assistance. Bach On P.S. Here is what I'm seeing in the root directory of the USB stick when I view the contents on another computer. I'll also show the sizes and type of the individual files) bizimage (2,260 KB) File bzroot (53,545 KB) File license (6 KB) Text Document make_bootable (1 KB) MS-DOS Batch file memtest (162 KB) File menu.c32 (33 KB) C32 file readme (7 KB) Text Document syslinux (CFG 1 KB)) CFG File syslinux (no size is shown) Application There is also a file folder named Config This file folder contains these files: disk (1 KB) CFG file go (1 KB) File ident (1 KB) CFG file network (1 KB) CFG file share (1 KB) CFG file
  4. I downloaded the stable version of UNRAID. I followed the instructions to install it on my new 4 Gigabyte Flash Drive. It's the 4.7 AIO version. The flash drive is a new 4Gb. Lexar drive. My computer is based on an older Abit IC7 Max3 motherboard. I set the boot sequence priority so the Flash Drive was first. But I cannot get the computer to boot up. I repeatedly get at 'boot error'. I've tried setting the USB to 2.0 and 1.0, disabled sound card, network, etc. Tried setting all the boot options to various USB components, disabled all drives but the USB. Same error. None of the function keys seem to give me any boot options. I really cannot tell if the computer is trying to boot from the USB drive or from one of the 3 drives connected to the motherboard. I'm not a Linux person. The drives have been partitioned and formatted under Windows 7. Then I installed the download UNRAID files to the flash drive. YES I did click on the Make Bootable item. And I did eject the flash drive. So, I've been considering some work-around options: 1. Could UNRAID be loaded to a CD or DVD? Then can the computer boot and run UNRAID from there? If so, are there any instructions that detail how to do this? 2. Three drives is the limit for the Freeware version. Can I use an older small IDE drive (80 Gig) to boot from, then use my 3 Two Terabyte drives as the UNRAID/server drives? I see the Flash Drive listed at the end of bootup - but nothing in the boot-up sequence actually tells me the drive the computer is attempting to use for the OS. I'm open to any and all suggestions. I'm pretty sure I followed the instructions correctly for setting up the flash drive. But I've yet to be able to get UNRAID to load. Thanks in advance for any assistance. Bach On
  5. The example I cited always made me laugh as a kid. That "3 Stooges" picture you had in your head was exactly what that little set of instructions said. It was supposed to teach us that we needed to be careful in what and how we wrote. Almost everyone can tell what was meant. But the incorrect placement of the pronoun (IT) did tell the person with the hammer to hit the head - even though they MEANT the nail. I included it, of course, to make a point: Clear writing can prevent misunderstandings. BO
  6. Yet the instructions clearly describe steps these same "smart enough to build a computer to run UNRAID" people probably know how to do. Sorry, but I don't think this has anything to do with intelligence. Just because someone does not know how to perform some computer task like formatting a Flash drive, or is not experienced in extracting zipped archives to the right location does not mean they have low intelligence. I know plenty of very smart people who cannot write Linux code. Knowing such things are specialized skills. Knowing or not knowing these things has nothing to do with the intelligence of a person. Here's my last attempt. The provided instructions include many detailed steps. Some users probably don't even bother to read these steps. Because of their experience, they probably know how to do all these things. (Notice I said because of experience NOT intelligence.) But the steps were included for those who might need them. They got down to some fairly simple details like telling those using Vista or Windows 7 to select Run as Administrator when selecting Make_Bootable. But they left out one crucial step. If you do not extract the Server zip file, the contents will not be there for someone to drag to the Flash. There is no statement in the provided instructions to extract the Server Zip file. You guys seem to be acting like the step was left off because those who wrote the instructions figured anyone with any intelligence would intuitively know what they meant. I repeat - this is a very simple issue to correct. If this prevents one or two people from making a mistake, I'd say the change would be beneficial. From the circle the wagons stance I'm reading here, you'd think I was suggesting a change in the wording of some passage in the United States Constitution. When I was in elementary school there was an example they used in our textbooks to explain proper placement of pronouns. It went something like this: "I'm going to hold this nail. You take this hammer. When I nod my head, Hit it with the hammer." BO
  7. OK, guys. I've had my say. I'm now going to rest my case. It seems to be falling on infertile ground. To answer your question, I wrote computer manuals for the school system for which I worked. I was in the Technology Department. These manuals were used to teach our teachers how to use programs like MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and many of the MS Works programs. Teachers like to have clear instructions. We used to call them "Bing. Bing. Bing." instructions. I agree that many computer instructions and manuals are not written in this fashion. The best ones are clear and step-by-step. What caused me to respond was that I saw the instructions presented here were generally presented in a clear step-by-step form. I just felt (and still feel) they were not quite complete. BO
  8. Respectfully, I will again point out that the provided instructions NEVER (Not a single time) tells the reader to extract the Zipped Archive file. Go back and read the posted instructions and you will see that what I say is true. A clear case can be made that if one drags the zipped archive to the flash drive then they are dragging the contents. Or a Newbie unfamiliar with zipped archives might not know the difference. Telling them to extract the zipped archive within a hard drive folder seems pretty simple. I'm sure your answer is to use common sense. My answer is to write instructions where this entire question cannot even come up. I used to write computer manuals. We were taught to treat the instructions for users just like programers have to treat computer code. Computer code does not rely on computers having common sense to interpret vague instructions. The code tells the computer each step to perform in sequence. Good computer manuals and instructions do the same thing for the users. If we were debating about computer code, you'd agree that the code needed to be changed. This would be viewed as a simple bug. You gave clear instructions for doing relatively simple things most people know how to do, like formatting the Flash drive. You even mentioned the Administrator step required in Windows Vista and Windows 7. And you mentioned ejecting the Flash drive. All these instructions were mostly "idiot proof". That translates to good, clear instructions. This issue can easily be fixed. And if you and I don't get caught up in a testosterone battle of who is right - I think most reasonable people will see that it should be changed. BO
  9. I know you folks want to provide clear instructions. Good instructions must include EVERY step in a process. I believe your instructions omit a crucial step. That leaves the possibility of getting different results. Please see below. The instructions for creating a bootable Flash Drive seem clear EXCEPT for two issues. Step 3 says, "Click on your Flash device (to open it) and drag then entire contents of the unRAID Server zip file to the Flash." Notice that the instructions say to drag "the entire contents". That leaves two interpretations: A. Extract the downloaded zip file into a folder on my Windows hard drive. Extract the zipped archive into that folder. Then drag only the extracted contents to the flash drive. Or B. Drag the entire zipped archive file over to the flash drive. You never state in the instructions to extract the zipped archive. Without that step, the instruction in step 4, "For Windows XP, click on the file 'make_bootable'. " is not possible. If I drag the downloaded zipped archive to the flash drive and extract it there, placement of the files is different than if I extract on my hard drive THEN drag the extracted files to my flash drive. I've tried it both ways. Second, on one version that I downloaded, clicking on "make_bootable" produced a window to extract some files. Another download just ran the script. Sadly, I have experimented with this download and followed the instructions. (I've tried it several ways.) I produced a Flash drive I thought would boot on my machine. What shows on my machine at boot time is "BOOT ERROR." The archive came from your site. It is named "unRAID Server 4.7 AIO". The flash drive is set as the first boot device. Any suggestions and ideas would be appreciated. Bach On