As it stands right now, I do not see a way to clear my drive.  The only tool available to me is the same Gigabyte system to clear it.  My question is did I execute the hdparm command correctly?  I should have seen more space available.

It depends on where you looked, and if it worked.   

 

As a safety measure, many disks will only let you set the HPA once per power cycle.  To try again, with any of the other utilities, you might need to power cycle the server.

 I do not have a cd drive on my server nor a method to create a boot flash drive to run Seatools for Dos.

Some tools can boot from a USB drive.  Some people have temporarily connected an old CD drive to boot from...  you do not need to mount it, just plug it in and boot from it.  You can even use a USB CD drive.  I use that method when initially loading my XBMC htpc boxes.  When done, I unplug it.

 

Another possibility is

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

It can load FreeDos which can then run most MS-DOS utilities.

 

Rather than spend more hours on this drive I bought a replacement Samsung 2TB drive.  When I pre-cleared the drive it was very fast.  The other Samsung 2TB drives drives took a little less than 30 hours to pre-clear.  This one took less than half the time. 

 

Again, it didn't allow for formatting the drive.  So I started the array.  And it went through a rebuild process although the original drive did not have any data on it other than the HPA partition.  I am nervous about putting any data on this new drive.  I did copy a single file to the drive and I was able to read it without any problems.

 

Is it safe to use this drive?  Do I need to format it?  If so how do I do it?

 

Tunetyme

Rather than spend more hours on this drive I bought a replacement Samsung 2TB drive.  When I pre-cleared the drive it was very fast.  The other Samsung 2TB drives drives took a little less than 30 hours to pre-clear.  This one took less than half the time. 

 

Again, it didn't allow for formatting the drive.  So I started the array.  And it went through a rebuild process although the original drive did not have any data on it other than the HPA partition.  I am nervous about putting any data on this new drive.  I did copy a single file to the drive and I was able to read it without any problems.

 

Is it safe to use this drive?  Do I need to format it?  If so how do I do it?

 

Tunetyme

when a drive is reconstructed, everything on it is reconstructed, including the formatting.  There is no separate formatting step when you replace an existing drive with another.

Thanks

I have all three drives up and running.  I am using Disk 1 and 3 for video and disk 2 for music.  I just added disk 3.  

The Share Name is S.

Comments is Video

Allocation is High Water

Min. Free Space is 4000000

Split Level 0

Include Disk Disk 1, Disk 3

Exclude Disk Disk 2

Use Cache Yes

Export SMB Export Read/Write

Export NFS is blank

 

I tried to move the files via the move command from my cache drive nothing happens.  What am I missing?

 

I realize that I have to make some changes in allocation and split level.  Right now I have all my videos on Disk 1.  The disk is full.  I think I would like to split the data with Action Adventure and Scifi on one drive and everything else on the original disk 1.  Current folder structure is (disk 1) S - Scifi, Drama etc. With movies under each broad category.  Am I to assume that I need to setup a folder S on disk 3 and then move the files from disk 1 to disk 3 ?  Is there a way to have the same file structure on Disk 3 and any new files would go to disk 3?  Hmmmm so many choices.  What is the best method?  My preference is to fill up a drive so I can have a external backup copy to prevent risk of loss. 

I have all three drives up and running.  I am using Disk 1 and 3 for video and disk 2 for music.  I just added disk 3. 

The Share Name is S.

Comments is Video

Allocation is High Water

Min. Free Space is 4000000

Split Level 0

Include Disk Disk 1, Disk 3

Exclude Disk Disk 2

Use Cache Yes

Export SMB Export Read/Write

Export NFS is blank

 

I tried to move the files via the move command from my cache drive nothing happens.  What am I missing?

with split level 0, YOU need to create any directories on each disk before they will be used.  Try a split level of 1 or 2...

I am using split level 2 and the files are moving now.

 

Thanks