I have a 1GB Kingston data traveler USB drive that I formatted using HP system tools to make it bootable.  I got everything set up and unRAID up and running with 1 drive and I was able to do a parity clear.  Then I shut it down to put the second drive in there and now I just get a blinking cursor after a POST.  I tried taking out the drives and boot up with just the USB drive and same thing happens.  I noticeds that sometimes I would get a long pause before I can enter the BIOS.  I don't know what I did wrong, I didn't change any BIOS setting since I got it working.  This is 4.2.1

On some motherboards, adding a hard disk may change the boot order to a hard disk.  Check the BIOS boot options, you may have to re-set it to boot from your flash.  Also check every cable connection, and check that every card is seated properly, perhaps something has come loose.  I think you are on the right track, by removing the extra hardware, and testing with the absolute minimum set of hardware devices.  Can't think of anything else for now...

 

Ok, I made some headway.  I am able to get my usb to boot but I'm getting the dreaded no such file or directory error for the network config files.  I tried formatting the usb to FAT as some have suggests in other posts but it didn't make a difference.  I know for a fact that this MB and USB works because I was able to clear my parity drive.  I used ifconfig to change the IP manually and I was able to ping my router and my XP box.  But when I did //192.168.1.200 (the IP I gave to unRAID)  but it times out.  So I tried to start up emhttp by executing /usr/local/sbin/emhttp  but that gave me a No such file or directory error on /boot/config/shares.  So it sounds like the USB is still not being mounted properly.  The question is, why is that?

 

btw, how do I shutdown unRAID from the command prompt?  shutdown -h 0 seems to stop at "no more process at this runlevel" but it does not power the box off.

On some motherboards, adding a hard disk may change the boot order to a hard disk.  Check the BIOS boot options, you may have to re-set it to boot from your flash.  Also check every cable connection, and check that every card is seated properly, perhaps something has come loose.  I think you are on the right track, by removing the extra hardware, and testing with the absolute minimum set of hardware devices.  Can't think of anything else for now...

 

 

I removed all of my drives and there are no cards on the MB at the moment, that's how I was able to get it to boot.  But now I have the USB mount problems.

One quick idea (I'm tired), did you set the flash volume label to exactly:  UNRAID

 

Without that, the directory structure won't be set up correctly, and unRAID won't finish booting.

 

One quick idea (I'm tired), did you set the flash volume label to exactly:  UNRAID

 

Without that, the directory structure won't be set up correctly, and unRAID won't finish booting.

 

 

That's exactly it!  During my many reformats of the USB, the label got lost.  I just noticed it too while scrolling up looking for error messages.  Thanks for the suggestion!  Let's see how far I can get.

Ok it looks like everything's back to normal.  I don't know what happened earlier that I couldn't boot.

 

Now a new question:

 

Must the parity be the biggest drive?  Can it be forced to use a smaller drive?  The reason I ask this is because I have (2) 200GB HD, one seagate, one maxtor.  I used the seagate as the parity and allowed it to do the parity check. (now the 2nd time)  But after shutting down and adding the maxtor, the maxtor is 1GB bigger.    The GUI is asking me to move the parity drive to the biggest drive with no other options...  I see the Seagate drive as the more reliable (also longer warranty) so I want to use it as the parity.  It is also the quietest.

Parity have to be biggest so it can make parity from all drives or atleast same size as biggest drive.  Biggest that means it's actual size, sectors your drive has. Most drives that are sold as same GB size have diffrent amount of sectors even from same manufacturer.

It's not just some made up limitation to make your life miserable, it's because otherwise unRAID can't make parity from all drives coz they where bigger.

Must the parity be the biggest drive?  Can it be forced to use a smaller drive?

Yes, it must be the biggest drive... even if bigger by only one sector.

  The reason I ask this is because I have (2) 200GB HD, one seagate, one maxtor.  I used the seagate as the parity and allowed it to do the parity check. (now the 2nd time)  But after shutting down and adding the maxtor, the maxtor is 1GB bigger.    The GUI is asking me to move the parity drive to the biggest drive with no other options...  I see the Seagate drive as the more reliable (also longer warranty) so I want to use it as the parity.  It is also the quietest.

If it is any consolation, once you load your media on your server the parity drive is the least used drive, and will be idle and spun down unless you are writing files to the array.  On the other hand, the data drive will be constantly used as you play your media.

 

So, having the "better/quieter drive" as the media drive, and the louder drive as the parity drive is not a bad thing. I'll bet the parity drive quiets down really nice when spun down once it is idle for an hour or so.

 

Joe L.

Thanks guys.  I know it's a requirement that parity be bigger than everything else.  I just didn't know if it's possible to ignore 1GB of space on the bigger drive some how therefore making the parity (seagate) the same size.  Oh well.  I've got another seagate that's 50GB bigger, I'll swap that in for the parity once I clear it out.

 

I do see your point on the parity being idle while doing reads. But I'll be doing lots of writes to it, so the parity drive will be moving a lot.