industrialarts
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Posts posted by industrialarts
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I have not tried it yet with the flash drive that boots - I'm a little paranoid to experiment with the only solution that continues to work. So I have several other drives that I have tried to get it to boot with a copy of the files that exist on the working drive. Only one flash drive starts to boot and errors with "can't find kernel image: linux. (bzimage is in the root, so IHNI)
So I want to continue to test with the new drive using the 4.7 files. Would it just be a matter of copying the files you indicate AND copying over the old config directory as well? Would that give me a 4.7 version with my old info on the new drive?
BTW, I am not sure that the new flash drive will work. I think the other drives didn't work because they are larger than 1G.
Also, I don't like powering my hard drives up and down like this - can I disconnect them until I get things stable?
Once again, thank for any and all help.
Mark Springer
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Sorry if this is the wrong forum, but here are my questions with regard to my upgrade problems. Eventually want to be running current release and PRO to add drives.
QUESTION # 1 -
4.7 has files that 4.3 doesn't but upgrade says only to copy bzimage, bzroot and memtest from 4.7. I have seen posts that suggest 4.3 needs a new syslinux.exe, which isn't in my 4.3 directory nor is a file named menu.c32
Here was the error I got when I upgraded:
VFS: Cannot open root device"(NULL)" or unknown block (8,1)
Please append a correct "roor"= "boot" option ; here are the available partitions:
0000495104 sda driver:sd
0004494576 sda
Kernel Panic - not Syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown - block (8,1) pid: 1, comm: swapper : Not tainted 2.6.32- unRaid #8
The searches I did on the forum suggested that a newer version of syslinux.exe may fix the problem, thus my question.
I have had no problem reloading the files that I had copied before I started and have been able to get back to a functioning 4.3 version.
QUESTION #2
It's an old motherboard and so I had to format the drive as a USB-ZIP which has functioned great for years. However, I now want to upgrade to the PRO version to add drives. Can I run the PRO from a drive formatted as USB-ZIP? There is a GUID number on the device page for the flash.
Not a Linux genius in the least, so I apologize if these are not very smart questions. Attached is a copy of the syslinux.cfg on the unRaid server
Thanks in advance,
Mark Springer
industrial arts
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Hmmm - OK, can I just change split levels at this point or is there more to it?
Thanks
Mark Springer
industrial arts
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Still having the same problem. I have a drive I call 100g and I have a share called 100g - just to back up the entire drive. I have the share set to most free with a split level of 1. I keep getting the error message from my backup program that the drive is full, even though there is a 500G drive that is almost empty in the tower.
Any idea why the data isn't spanning the two discs?
BTW version 4.3, I'm not going to upgrade if I can't get this to work.
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I figured out my own problem (see below) by changing the allocation method to most free. Why didn't high water mark figure out the drive was full? The explanation of shares in the manual is not clear on using this feature.
Mark Springer
industrial arts
I am using a program called "Allway Sync" (which is a great program!) to backup to my unRaid server, which I only use to store my data. I have 2 500G drives and 1 750G parity drive.
As disk 1 filled up, I wanted the backup to span to the second disk; I thought this was accomplished by a User Share ( I was told this in another post). However, disk 1 is full and I am getting error messages from Allway Sync that it can't copy the files.
I have a file called 100G that is the backup target on the unRaid Server. That file shows up in "my network places" and is a user share on the server. It is set at - high water mark - split level 0 - export read/write. All other fields are blank. User shares is enabled.
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Thanks to all!
And yes, I have thought about moving my data to an offsite location as well. I might do that and use the UnRaid server as I do more media storage.
I didn't know about using "user shares" to present the server as one drive. Could someone point me to someplace I can research this to understand?
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When I installed a new drive I was (by my own misunderstanding) expecting to just see a bigger raid drive. I understand now that the drives exist separately. Which is fine, so here's my question for anyone's opinion.
I use my UnRaid as a backup server only. I do not stream my media like it seems most UnRaid user's do. That being the case, if I were to "mirror" one drive (by copying or syncing the data from drive 1 to drive 2) would I now have an even more secure backup? I have more than enough drive space to do so.
So - can I ease my paranoid fears
of data loss even more by having the data on two drives?Thanks for your input.
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Sorry for the delay - just wanted to let you know that after my last post things went well and fairly easy. Even the upgrade was easy.
Thanks again for your help.
Mark Springer
industrial arts
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Start is greyed out and not available to me. Only: refresh, spin up, spin down, reboot and power down. Is it possible that the drive is formatting?
What next? I will check out the Wiki.
PS: saw your follow up posts. I will give at least as long - probably longer - than the parity check took and see what happens. As soon as I get my server in order, I will see if I can assist with the Wiki.
PSS the check box under the "Start" was not greyed out as I though. The start button is now available. I will let you know what happens and then see if I can add to the Wiki.
Thanks again,
Mark Springer
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Sorry - not done yet. I have searched the forums for the answer to this question and could not find a direct response.
After un-assigning the old parity drive and assigning the new drive, I now have a blue light that says "Stopped. Upgrading parity." I have not seen this referred to in any post I searched. (parity blue light, Stopped. Upgrading parity., blue light , blue are the search terms I used and searched all forums.) All the posts are kind of vague and none say exactly what the blue light means, but I can see that it has something to do with the disk. The manual says it is a disk not part of the array. So....
I am assuming this is OK? But what happens next and for how long? The parity check took about two hours, so do I assume that the upgrade will take as long - or even longer, because of the larger parity drive? There is a refresh button that has no effect at this point. Or is there something else that I have to do now?
I don't know who to direct this comment to, but the basic documentation is really weak. I have seen some people make comments in the forums on how the documentation needs to be clearer. I think most problems that people have could be avoided if there were explicit step by step directions for these procedures. I create technical documents for a living and have learned that you need to be incredibly specific when giving directions. Who should I direct comments about the documentation to?
Thanks again for your time and help,
Mark Springer
industrial arts
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Thanks - I think I have it now. After poking around the forums, the general idea seems to be one step at a time. So I will unsassign the old drive, assign the new drive as parity, restart the array and then reassign the old drive. I am checking parity now and I did upgrade to 4.3.
Thanks once again for your help.
Mark Springer
industrial arts
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I'm still unsure. Maybe it's just my lack of server knowledge. And I'd rather make sure than have to go thru all the data woes I went thru to set it up.
What do you mean by "slot"? - do you mean the IDE or SATA port on the controller card? By installing a new SATA controller card and attaching the disk have I installed it in a new slot?
If I understand what you are telling me, the quick answer to my question is yes. And if so, should I get the parity drive working before I reassign the old parity drive as a data drive?
One final caveat - I am still running UnRaid version 4.0. It was a huge hassle to get the flash drive to work and I'm not too tempted to experiment since things have been running so well. It has to do with the motherboard/ BIOS not easily booting from a USB drive.
I searched the forum for info on how to upgrade but haven't found instructions yet. I would like to update if it is just a matter of overwriting some files on the flash.
Thanks again
Mark Springer
industrial arts
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Does replace mean the same as reassign?
I have installed a new 750G drive in my Unraid server. I have powered up the system and stopped it - the new drive is available but unassigned.
The new drive is bigger than the 2 - 500G drives that are currently in the server.
Do I simply have to unassign the current parity drive and assign the new drive as the parity drive?
To my technical mind, when the manual says replace, I assume that to mean that the piece should be physically replaced. However, logic suggests that this may not be the case after looking at the devices page.
Consequently, if it is only a matter of reassignment, starting the array will build the system with the new 750G drive as parity - is this correct? And then I assign the other drive as a data drive?
One other caveat I would like to mention. The new drive is on it's own drive controller - it is a SATA drive, not IDE like the other two. Will this be a problem?
Thanks much,
Mark Springer
industrial arts
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Paritydrive failure in itself do not give dataloss, just loss of protection.
/Rene
I understand your point, but what my concern is - in the event that both a data drive AND the parity drive were damaged, you would stand to lose more data with larger drives. If a power supply were to fail or just have a long enough period of bad line voltage, then this could be more than just a theoretical concern. And I get the feeling that a lot of the UNRAID users out there are not conditioning the AC line voltage for their server, once again opening up the possibility of multiple drive errors.
It would be great if there were a way to back up the parity drive (this from the Department of Redundancy Department)
industrialarts
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I was thinking about this from a different perspective today. As appealing as it is to add the largest drives possible, you also stand to loose the biggest amount of data (in the event that the parity drive fails when a data drive fails, like from system failure or even a power drop out). So might it be better to add something smaller as you add drives?
I realize there are several factors involved with adding drives, but when I upgrade my system, I might not purchase anything larger than 400G (my parity drive is 500G). And then I would never have to think about the parity drive.
Just a thought
industrialarts
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I have a drive I would like to add to the array that has data on. However, the data on that drive is what I want on the server (it has music files). Is there a way to put that drive in the array and keep the data? My configuration will be 500G for parity, 500G storage and then the 320G drive that currently has the music files. It seems a little redundant to have to copy the files to the drive and then put that drive in place.
Thanks
industrialarts
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Got it - Thanks!
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Thanks, but I still am not sure just how drive space is calculated. For example, if I have 3 500G drives, does that make 1T of storage?
industrialarts
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I finally got UNRAID up and running to test. I had two 40G hard drives to play with. When I look at the properties in Windows explorer for the new drive (Tower/disk1) I have mapped, it shows the total space to be 40G. Huh? I expected to have the 80g minus the space for parity. I can find no info in the forums or documentation in reference to this.
Could someone please explain how this works?
Thanks
industrialarts
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My hardware will only boot from a fllash drive as a USB-ZIP drive; I got my first clue when the flash drive would only show "boot error" when I selected USB-ZIP as the boot device in BIOS. See here for further information - http://syslinux.zytor.com/usbkey.php
I found the following site that gives excellent instructions on how to set up the geometry of my flash to mimic a ZIP drive (thanks to Joe L for the tip). First you will need to create a live Knoppix disc (I used Knoppix because it has the MKDISKIMAGE utility as part of it's release). If this is something you are not familiar or comfortable with, proceed at your own risk.
When you get Knoppix up and running, then go to this site for setup instructions (preferably on a different computer to make it easier to reference). You will need internet access on the Knoppix computer as well.
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Bootable_USB_Key
Follow all the instructions carefully - except you should skip these steps; they are for loading Knoppix onto the flash.
cp -av /cdrom/boot/isolinux/* .
mv isolinux.cfg syslinux.cfg
rm -f isolinux.bin
and
cp -av /cdrom/* .
rm -rf ./boot
While still in Knoppix, open the Iceweasel browser, navigate to the Lime Technology site and download the latest version of UNRAID to the desktop. Extract it with ARK to the flash drive.
Now take the flash and attach it to your Windows computer. Find the drive in explorer; right click, select properties and rename it to UNRAID. DO NOT FORMAT - just change the name.
Attach the flash drive back on the UNRAID computer, reset the bios to boot from USB-ZIP and see what happens.
Good luck - I would be glad to answer any questions, but I am a total newbie to this stuff and really don't know much.
industrialarts
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Joe
Nope, that doesn't work. And if I do it via format, then the machine will no longer boot from the flash.
I need to understand how to use mlabel in Mtools. There is a flag -v that I don't understand.
I take that back.....
Woo- hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I'm in!
industrialarts
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I was able to get my old computer to boot from the flash drive by downloading a live version of Knoppix and using this method (http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Bootable_USB_Key). However, I am new to linux and don't know how to change tie name of the volume to UNRAID. I have not been able to fiigure out if I need to make a volume group or just try to rename the volume or what. Can anyone help?
BTW, this was a great introduction to linux
Thanks
industrialarts
NOTE: if you try this, skip these steps
cp -av /cdrom/boot/isolinux/* .
mv isolinux.cfg syslinux.cfg
rm -f isolinux.bin
&
cp -av /cdrom/* .
rm -rf ./boot
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Joe
I tried to reformat the flash drive per your instructions as well as trying this method (http://www.cepros.com/linux/usb_flash_boot.html). I also reviewed this site (http://syslinux.zytor.com/usbkey.php) and tried to make the diskimage but the mkdiskimage command appears not to be on the live linux I have been using ( I downloaded SLAX but have been working from the command line, not the GUI). I even tried using the parameters you last posted. None of it seems to make the computer think the flash is a zip drive.
I think I understand the concept, but do you see anything that might help. The only info I can give is the flash drive is a generic 512M drive. I got it to boot UNRAID on another computer, and I can see it on my laptop when I plug it and can format it from WinXP. The most that has happened so far is that the boot from the USB-ZIP drive says "remove disks
orother media. press any key to restarrt" as opposed to "boot error".
Thanks
industrialarts
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Joe
I did find some live linux CDRoms and now I have to spend a little more time looking, due to the various versions available. Building a Linux machine was a project down the road, but it seems to have placed itself in my path now. I might as try to pick a release that I will be able to use as a basis for the actual linux machine.
Regarding reformatting the flash drive - if I need to reformat it back to a flash drive, can you tell me what the parameters are?
Thanks for your help,
industrialarts
of data loss even more by having the data on two drives?
TROUBLE UPGRADING - 4.3 to 4.7 so I can go to 5.0 and then PRO
in General Support (V5 and Older)
Posted
Thanks - knowing that I should be able to boot to a functioning version of UNRAID without the drives makes it a little easier - and less stressful - to experiment until I get a working setup.
Will post with solution when it's up.
Thanks again,
Mark Springer