I've got an odd issue.
I had a parity (not completed), which I temporarily removed to allow me to setup a new config.

Now when I try to assign that same drive back as parity, I'm getting the "Disk in parity slot is not biggest." error.
I've tried clearing the drive, formatting it, but no joy. 

I'd try fdisk, but I'm not convinced I can identify the correct drive to format.
The parity drive "fdisk -l" info is as follows. 
I can't figure out how to confirm which drive in the UI relates to sdb or sdf. 

```
fdisk -l /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sdb: 2.73 TiB, 3000591900160 bytes, 5860531055 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD30EFRX-68E
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 5BDCE4B5-A531-4BB7-AE4E-2DB5701100FD
 

fdisk -l /dev/sdf
Disk /dev/sdf: 2.73 TiB, 3000592982016 bytes, 5860533168 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD30EFRX-68E
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 2A750CBA-D0AB-4DF9-81B7-95D561F6DB20

Device     Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sdf1     64 5860533134 5860533071  2.7T Linux filesystem```

 

Fdisk shows sdb is slightly smaller, was this a shucked drive? You should also post the diags in case HPA is enabled.

Hey Jorge, thanks for the quick response.

It's not Shucked. Diags attached.
From the diags, I can confim the parity drive is sdb.
I'm currently running preclear to see if that makes any difference, or do I need to cancel and run some cli commands to reset the partitions? 

tower-diagnostics-20240102-1107.zip

12 minutes ago, punraid said:

I'm currently running preclear to see if that makes any difference,

It won't.

Jan  2 10:15:53 Tower kernel: ata3.00: HPA detected: current 5860531055, native 5860533168

 

Hmm, damn.
```

hdparm -N /dev/[hs]d[a-z]

/dev/sda:
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  f0 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 26 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
 max sectors   = 0/1, HPA is enabled

/dev/sdb:
 max sectors   = 5860531055/5860533168, HPA is enabled

/dev/sdc:
 max sectors   = 3907029168/3907029168, HPA is disabled

/dev/sdd:
 max sectors   = 3907029168/3907029168, HPA is disabled

/dev/sde:
 max sectors   = 976773168/976773168, HPA is disabled

/dev/sdf:
 max sectors   = 5860533168/5860533168, HPA is disabled
```

So, I need to run 
`hdparm -N p5860533168 /dev/sdb`
I'll take a look at the bios to see if I can disable the hda feature for the short term. Long term it looks like I need a new mobo  
Thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction! 
As this is the parity drive, am I safe to assume I can either fix using the above command or obtain a larger drive for parity? 

18 minutes ago, punraid said:

As this is the parity drive, am I safe to assume I can either fix using the above command or obtain a larger drive for parity? 

Correct

Thanks again,
So, just to confirm, I need to do the following :-
- stop the preread.
- run `hdparm -N p5860533168 /dev/sdb`. (Is the size correct? ) 
- format drive.

- assign to parity
- run parity
- relax

? 

No need to format after disabling HPA, just assign it as parity

And is the size I've defined in the command correct?

Looks like it, but check the instructions, I don't remember by heart.

Big thanks! That appears to have worked!