Hi - newbie here! I'll try to keep it short:

 

unRaid 5.0-beta12a

motherboard: Zotac GF6100-E-E

Drive 0 (parity): WD Green 2TB EARS (MBR: 4K-aligned)

Drive 1 (disk1): WD Green 2TB EARS (MBR: 4K-aligned)

Drive 2 (unassigned): Seagate 1.5TB (pulled from a GoFlex)

 

unRaid has been up successfully for 6 months on Drives 0 and 1.  I have tried twice to add this Seagate drive.  Shut down, connect drive, power up, stop array, assign drive, clear, format... then during parity check, 11k errors.  Syslog attached after 2nd attempt.

 

Here's my problem: after a reboot, or even stopping the array, the drive is detected as unassigned. 

 

Here are my questions before I try a third time: should I change the "partition format" setting to "MBR: unaligned" before adding this non-EARS drive? Will changing this setting screw up my existing EARS drives?  Am I doing something else wrong?

 

Appreciate any help.

Thanks

III_D

syslog-2.txt

 

Hi - newbie here! I'll try to keep it short:

 

unRaid 5.0-beta12a

motherboard: Zotac GF6100-E-E

Drive 0 (parity): WD Green 2TB EARS (MBR: 4K-aligned)

Drive 1 (disk1): WD Green 2TB EARS (MBR: 4K-aligned)

Drive 2 (unassigned): Seagate 1.5TB (pulled from a GoFlex)

 

unRaid has been up successfully for 6 months on Drives 0 and 1.  I have tried twice to add this Seagate drive.  Shut down, connect drive, power up, stop array, assign drive, clear, format... then during parity check, 11k errors.  Syslog attached after 2nd attempt.

 

Here's my problem: after a reboot, or even stopping the array, the drive is detected as unassigned. 

 

Here are my questions before I try a third time: should I change the "partition format" setting to "MBR: unaligned" before adding this non-EARS drive? Will changing this setting screw up my existing EARS drives?  Am I doing something else wrong?

 

Appreciate any help.

Thanks

III_D

You are doing it in the wrong order.

 

Preclear new drive

Then STOP array

Then ASSIGN drive

Then START Array

Then FORMAT drive

 

Partition format setting has absolutely NOTHING to do with anything in this case.  The seagate will work perfectly regardless of where the partition starts.  Changing the setting affects NOTHING except how unRAID will partition a drive that does not already have a defined partition.    It never affects existing drives in the array.  If you use the pre-clear script, the disk will be already partitioned, and again the setting is not used.

 

You described assigning the drive first, then pre-clearing it.  That is wrong.

 

See here for info on pre-clear: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2817.0

 

It may work better than the stock disk clear.

 

Thanks guys for the help.  I had forgotten about the preclear script.  I had tried to go through the unRaid menus, which had a "clear disk" step, and it took many hours, so I thought it was the same thing.

 

I would love to try your advice, but I'm stuck with this problem:  I can't seem to install any packages, so I haven't been able to install "screen".  Here's what it says:

 

 

/boot/packages/screen-4.0.3-i486-1.tgz: Read-only file system

 

screen-4.0.3-i486-1.tgz not successfully downloaded

 

/boot/packages/utempter-1.1.4-i486-1.tgz: Read-only file system

 

utempter-1.1.4-i486-1.tgz not successfully downloaded

 

I noticed this "read-only" error yesterday.  I have tried rebooting, no change.  Next I guess I'll pull the new drive and see what happens.

 

Thanks

III_D

syslog3.txt

Run check-disk on the flash on a PC or Mac.

 

Looks like I have some work to do before I will make progress on this.

 

CHKDSK found some errors in the unMenu folder.  "Corrupted files converted to folders". 

 

Now after rebooting I can't even browse through unMenu to the packages section.

 

I'm going to backup and replace this USB key before I do anything else.  I'll post again when I've finished the preclear and see if that new 1.5TB drive will go live in the array.

 

Thanks again

III_D

 

OK, so while this thread probably won't help anyone much with the original title's issue, at least I can tell others what I found out and what worked for me.

 

I think from the beginning the problem was really a corrupt USB flash drive.  The clue was there in my syslog (in the 1st post):

 

Apr 29 17:36:24 unraid kernel: write_file: error 30 opening /boot/config/super.dat

Apr 29 17:36:24 unraid kernel: md: could not write superblock from /boot/config/super.dat

 

From what I have learned about the super.dat file, if you can't update your super.dat after a drive change, your array will not recognize any changes upon reboot.

 

So rebuilding the flash drive on a new "Kingston 4GB Datatraveler 101" with 5beta12a, and copying over my CONFIG directory, I was now back at where I started trying to add a new drive. 

 

PRECLEAR_DISK.SH ran on the new drive without a hitch (used -A switch as per forum info).  Drive is now up on my array. 

 

Thanks again to dgaschk and Joe L., their answers both helped point me in the right direction.

III_D