Problem adding new drive

[rdross80]

I added a 3rd data drive to my array, and went about how I normally do it. After it was added, Unraid went through the process of clearing it, and once it was done I formatted it, but after the format it still said it was unmountable. I tried this several times with no results. So, I figured I would take it back out of the array and see if there was something I could do in Unassigned Devices, but that was apparently a mistake, because then Unraid saw the disk was missing and started emulating it, even though it was never mounted in the first place. So I added the disk back to the array and it has begun a parity rebuild. Currently, as shown in the screenshot, the drive is still shown as unmountable. So what exactly will happen once the rebuild is done? I'm assuming it will still be unmountable. Is there something I'm doing wrong here? 

tower-diagnostics-20220627-2159.zip

Edited June 28, 2022 by rdross80

[trurl]

Did something partition this disk before you added it to the array?

[rdross80]

Just now, trurl said:

Did something partition this disk before you added it to the array?

Not that I know of. It was an external drive that I bought brand new that I shucked. Only thing I did before shucking was hooked it up to my Windows PC to make sure it was a 14tb drive. From there I installed it into my server and added it to my array. Nothing in between. 

[trurl]

7 minutes ago, rdross80 said:

an external drive that I bought brand new that I shucked

Probably was partitioned at factory, maybe even formatted.

 

What do you get from the command line with this?

lsblk

 

[rdross80]

[trurl]

And what do you get with this?

fdisk -l /dev/sdd

 

[rdross80]

7 minutes ago, trurl said:

And what do you get with this?

fdisk -l /dev/sdd

 

[trurl]

Looks normal to me. Maybe someone else will have some ideas.

[JorgeB]

When you started the array with disk3 emulated it mounted, suggesting the problem is the disk not accepting the correct partition layout, you can try clearing or preclearing the disk and try again, but there could be some other issue.

[rdross80]

So should I let it continue rebuilding the parity before trying anything else? It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't take so damn long. Also, is there a way to remove that disk without it requiring a parity rebuild? Like, just revert it back to the way it was before I installed that drive?

[JorgeB]

You can cancel, it won't work in the end anyway.

 

11 minutes ago, rdross80 said:

Also, is there a way to remove that disk without it requiring a parity rebuild?

Since the emulate disk was formatted if you remove the disks a parity sync is required.

[rdross80]

Okay, so I stopped the rebuild, stopped the array and took the disk out of the array and into unassigned devices. I then tried pre-clearing it, but got this error message: Disk /dev/sdd is part of Unraid array. Aborted.

Is there anyway around this? If not, what are my other options? Will I just have to buy another drive? 

[JorgeB]

Start the array without the disk, preclear should work then.

[rdross80]

That's how I did it, but still got the error.

 

[JorgeB]

There was a preclear error, that's a different issue, check or post the preclear log.

[rdross80]

[JorgeB]

Reboot, it's no longer part of the array.

[rdross80]

Oh geez, it really was that simple. After rebooting, I added the drive back to the array, and it's no longer showing unmountable and I can see the full size of the drive. It's currently going through a data rebuild, but I'm pretty sure after that, everything will be good. I feel kinda dumb about it now, as rebooting should always be the first thing to do with most issues. I'll update tomorrow after the rebuild just to verify that everything is good.

[JorgeB]

21 minutes ago, rdross80 said:

but I'm pretty sure after that, everything will be good.

Yes, if it's OK during the rebuild it will also be when it's done.

[trurl]

8 hours ago, rdross80 said:

rebooting should always be the first thing to do with most issues

I can't agree with that. Many, perhaps most, issues, reboot won't help at all.

 

At the very least, you should get diagnostics before rebooting so you can post them.

[rdross80]

16 minutes ago, trurl said:

I can't agree with that. Many, perhaps most, issues, reboot won't help at all.

 

At the very least, you should get diagnostics before rebooting so you can post them.

I linked the diagnostics in the first post if you want to look at it. It's all Greek to me. 

[trurl]

6 minutes ago, rdross80 said:

I linked the diagnostics in the first post if you want to look at it. It's all Greek to me. 

I already did look at them and used them as a basis for the replies I made earlier.

 

I am simply disagreeing with your "general principle" of rebooting as the first thing to do for any problem.

 

Rebooting won't help for most things, and if you don't at least get diagnostics before rebooting we have lost information about what happened before reboot.

[rdross80]

Well, in between my original post and rebooting, I didn't do anything I hadn't already tried before, so the diagnostics shouldn't have been any different. As for my comment, I apologize if that was wrong to say. I'm nowhere near an expert on unRAID, obviously. 

[trurl]

Nothing to apologize for. Just wanted to stress that getting diagnostics before rebooting is important. Many people have already rebooted before they ask for help, and at that point, diagnostics can only tell us how things are, they can't tell us much about how things got that way.

[rdross80]

One last update. Parity rebuild is done, and everything seems to doing good. Thanks to turl and JorgeB for your help and patience.