I'm sitting here at server version 1.050826, and would like to move into the 20th century (actually i just want shares). 

Based on what I extracted from the forum, it looks like I have to go from 1.050826 to 3.0, then 3.0 to 4.0, then 4.0 to 4.2...  Is that right???

Is there a reliable shortcut to not have to do all the intermediate steps

I don't know of any reason to go through all the intermediate versions of unRaid.

 

You should be able to load the 4.2.1 version on a flash drive, plug it into your array, get the GUID serial number off the drive by reading it on the management page, send it to Tom at Lime-Tech, install the file for the Pro key he sends you back and then go to the disk-assignment page, assign the disks to their respective slots in the array and be up and running.

 

There are directions somewhere about upgrading from an older version and using "dd" to create a super.dat file.  I'm not sure you need to do that since you are re-organizing all your disks anyway.

 

In any case, load 4.2.1 on a flash drive, get it to where it will boot, (you will probably need to set the motherboard's bios to select the new flash drive as the boot device) and you will not have to load 20 different beta/final versions of unRaid in the upgrade process.

 

Before you do anything, write down the disk drive model/serial numbers and the slots they are in on your existing array. You will want to put them back in the same assigned slots in the array on the new version's disk assignment page.  It is critical that the parity drive gets re-assigned the parity role.

 

Whatever yo do, do not re-format any drives (if prompted) unless you do not want the data on them.  I don't think you will see a prompt that will show a drive as "unformatted" but if you do, stop and ask for help here.  Do not check the box and say "Restore" until you get some advice that is the only course of action possible as unRaid will clear and reformat any drive it shows as "unformatted" you have assigned to an array slot.

 

Even before Tom sends you the "Pro" key you can assign any three data drives (and no parity drive) and browse to them to see if the data is still there.

 

Joe L.

would like to move into the 20th century

 

21st (8 years now)

 

 

Apparently I'm still not in the 20th or 21st century.

Having been excited that I got my  managemnt utility  back in line, I thought I would try the upgrade to 4.2  So following the upgrade directions, i formatted my sandisk crruzer 1gb usb drive, loaded syslinux and extracted 4.2.1 to the drive.  I stopped the server, powered off, removed the old usb drive, stuck in the new one and started back up.  The system wouldn't boot, so I went ot the bios settings to check for any of the issues related to bios (although it had been working just fine) and foud the only boot device was still set to usb.  Under usb settings I found the following,

• USB - Enabled
  
• Hi-speed USB - Enabled
  
• Legacy USB support - Enabled
  
• USB 2.0 Legacy support - Hi-speed
  

 

So without changing anything, I shut down, put the old (working) usb drive back in and rebooted.  Nothin... Now it wouldn't boot from the previously working usb drive without any settings changes.

So I used the hp formatter to format the new usb drive, reloaded syslinux and 4.2.1 and tried disabling some of the usb settings to see if it would work.  Nothing

Put the old usb key back in, changed settings, put them all back to original... still nothing

So what could I have done by trying to boot with the new usb key that would make the system not boot from the old key. 

I woulda thought that if the new key didn't work, I just plug the old key back in it would boot fine

 

FYI, I'm using the coolmaster cmstacker 12 drive case that Tom sold when he first started UNRAID.  I bought the empty system with motherboard, controllers, everything already in place.

 

First-off, anyone that can laugh at themselves is OK with me.

 

OK, on to the topic at-hand ... You are correct, plugging in the old USB key should have worked.  The only thing I can think of is that your BIOS saw the new USB key, had a problem with it, then reset the boot order and/or boot device such that it just isn't looking at the USB key anymore (or looking at it incorrectly).  I seem to remember others' having this problem in the past.

 

So, look for two other BIOS settings:

 

1. Boot order

2. Something like "boot type" or "USB type" - I forget the exact words, but my mobo's BIOS choices are hard drive, auto, forced FDD, etc.  I used Forced FDD for my ASUS board.

 

Most importantly, remain patient - the talent on this board is quite good (my contribution is comprised of responsiveness and my search ability, not talent), so you'll get back up and running.

 

 

Bill

Bill

thanks for your quick response... very good use of your talent

While I was away, I tried booting my laptop with the old key and it worked fine (I tried with the new key and got bupkus, so I', not surprised my server didn't boot)... so the key is still fine... although I'm sure that having booted my laptop with linux will come back to bite me 

So, as you said, if my system reset a bios setting during the attempt to load the new key, I'm up the creek since I have now idea what they might have been.

So on to the trial and error portion of our program.

Under the boot section of my bios, there are the following selections

• Silent Boot - Disabled
  
• Intel® Rapid Bios Boot - Disabled
  
• PXE Boot to LAN - Disabled
  
• USB Boot - enabled - this seems like a good thing
   
  
• Boot Device Prioirity
  
• Hard Disk Drives
  

when i select boot device priority, it show only

1st boot device      [PM-HDS725050KLAT80]  which appears to be the first drive

there is no listing for the usb drive even though it's little blue light is on and USB boot is enabled

 

oops.. slow typer that I am, Rene snuck in with a reply confirming what I appear to be seeing... Rene, if I send you a beer, will u tell me which bios settings to put back 

 

Problem, is I can't figure out where in the bios the setting to stop the hard drive boot or further enable the usb boot is located.... I'll kep looking while trying not to screw up the rest of my bios... I know, write it down... like thats gonna happen

 

 

Look under hard disk drives.  I think once you find your USB key and set it correctly, it will then show up under boot device priority for you to select.

 

 

Bill

Wahooooo  - it was there.  I was confused by some of the bios terminology... who woulda thought you would go somewhere besides the setting labled "Boot Device Priority" to set the boot device priority

 

thanks Bill

sorry Rene, but Bill gets the beer, not you... but thanks for playing. 

I think i'll rest before I try to load 4.2.1 again... But I'm sure I'll be back

This is a community victory, you owe all of us beers. 

 

Glad to see you back up and running.

 

 

Cheers,

CG (usually "Cocky Guy" or worse, but I'll accept the moniker "Clever Guy" this time)

593 members.... thats more beers than I can afford at the moment, but I owe ya

 

 

:'( :'( :'( I shoulda taken the rest of the day off.

I decided to re-try 4.2.1.  So I plugged my SanDisk Cruzer mini 1.0 gb usb drive into my laptop.  Followed the very clear, and apparently very easy, directions to load unRAID Server Basic onto the usb.  Even though I have more drives than would show, I was following Joe's advice and thought I wold see what I could see with version 4.2.1 and 2 of my drives.  Now that I am an expert (having changed my bios settings at least 15 times today) and since I have the "highly reccomended" Intel D865GLCLK motherboard with the bios version Tom reccommends and my settgins match exaclty the settings recommended for that particlular motherboard and I was using one of the 3 "highly reccomended" USB drives, I figured if I just followed the freakin directions, it should be easy...

 

no suck luck.

 

Just tobe sure, here is what I did

used windows to format drive with fat32, called it unraid, used quick format, f drive

ran syslinux that I got from the download page... confirmed the ldlinux.sys file was on my f drive

extracted 4.2.1 to the f drive... lottsa new files and folders so it must have worked.

safely ejected the flash drive (I always wondered who used that anyway)

 

Plugged usb into server after having removed other usb

powered on and went into bios... went directly to correct spot to change the boot to the new usb... hit f10 and waited to see system boot..... nada, bupkus,  just a tiny blinking horizontal line at the top of the screen.... so...

plugged the old flash drive back in, truned system on, went into bios, changed usb drive to boot from, hit f10, and voila... system boots and is good as old (still on 1.0)

 

powered down, put new usb back in, tried again.... and again... and again...  changed bios settings per installation recommendations to try different usb setup like disabling usb 2.0.... formatted usb using the hp format thingy...still got nothin

 

To be fair, the cruzer mini was not a brand new out of the box one, it is one that I have had around for a while.  I assumed this wouldn't have an effect on the process but who knows?

 

Can you see anything I might have missed during my installation attempts?

One quick question... ok, maybe two...

 

Have you removed any "U3" partitioning that might be on your sandisk cruizer.

Have you ever used "fdisk" on windows or dos to look at or define a partition on a disk?

 

The reasons I am asking is I also have that same original motherboard and I had a very tough time getting my sandisk 1 gig drive to boot.  I eventually had to use the lunix "fdisk" command to format the drive and had to add additional arguments to the syslinux command when loading the boot loader.

 

Easiest by far is to use a different brand/size flash drive, it will probably boot just fine....  but if you want to take a look, what I ended up doing is described in these two threads...

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=366.0

and here

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=359.0

 

At one point in the thread it looked like it partially booted, but could not find emhttp.  I'll bet I did not have the volume label set to "UNRAID" at that time.  In any case, the syslunix -sma f: miight have done it. 

 

Looks like you can experiment a bit... if you want to get involved in the bits and bytes.

 

Good news is once I got the C/H/S set, everything else has been very stable and booting is no problem at all.

Joe L.

Mike - sent you an email...

Something about that particular model is "problematic".  The 512MB version works just fine however.

Joe

 

thanks again for he info.  I did find your thead on Sunday and noticed you had a similar problem.  To avoid getting in too much trouble, I'm getting a drive with the software on it from Tom... He's being nice to me I think anyone still on version 1.0 needs all the help he can get.  I looked back through my old email and noticed that I ordered my server from Tom back in sept of 2005.  It ran unattended until one of the drives crapped out (without my knowledge)  last month.  That is actually pretty amazing. 

 

Thanks to Tom for a great product, and the the forum for all the support.  I got more questions, but need to start a different thread with the appropriate topic.

Glad Tom is taking care of you.

 

I think I ordered my unRaid server in October of 2005.  It has been upgraded (many times) so it is on the latest version of unRaid.

 

My server has not yet had a disk failure, but it is only a matter of time.  All disks eventually crash... some just last longer than others before they do. It is exactly why we have RAID based arrays.

 

Joe L.