June 25, 200818 yr I have just upgraded my parity drive from a 500mb to a 750mb. Per the instructions, I accomplished the task by removing my old parity drive and putting in the new one. The system rebuilt the new parity drive as expected. I then upgraded to 4.3 from 4.2.1 and went from the basic to the Plus version. Before I upgraded to the Plus version, my system would periodically boot under what looks like the motherboard Raid configuration. It would ask me to either press CTRL+S or F4 (neither works). After several tries, I couldn't reboot at all. After reading on the forum, I upgraded the syslinux file on my Micro Cruzer. My system will now boot, but I'm still getting on average 2 out of 3 times the Motherboard Raid boot. I have now installed my old parity drive and understood from the documentation that the system would recognize the drive and I would be asked to reformat, and could then use it as a data drive. The system is not recognizing the drive. My system is up as I've just disconnected the old parity drive pending getting some suggestions on the forum. So two questions--1) Any ideas on the boot problem 2) Any suggestions on getting the system to recongize the old parity drive. Thanks!
June 25, 200818 yr Make sure you upgrade to v4.3.1, see the Release Announcement here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2132.0. As to the RAID boot prompts, what addon disk controllers do you have? Some have a choice of RAID or non-RAID firmware, and you want to flash it with the non-RAID firmware. As to the parity drive, in some cases, you may have to clear the MBR. Somewhere I believe, JoeL has provided instructions for using dd to clear the first tracks of a drive, or fdisk to erase any partitions. I haven't tried it. Perhaps he will be along to provide more specific advice, if needed.
June 25, 200818 yr Boot problem: Might you be pressing a key on the keyboard during the boot process... as such, the motherboard bios is interpreting it and prompting you to respond. As far as adding the drive. First, write down the existing drive model/serial number and which slots they are in. a screen-print of the main management console is perfect for this. When adding hardware, Linux sometimes scans the hardware in a different order. When you power up you will want to make sure the parity drive is still in the parity drive slot in the array. If you have installed the ".key" file in the config folder, you should reboot (if you have already, good) Then, stop the array, go to the devices page, and you should be able to assign the old parity drive to a slot in the array. Also the top of "devices" page should show your registration info. Go back to the main page and you should be able to start the array. (You might need to check a checkbox below the "Start" button to enable it) It should say that it will reformat the drive. If it does not, then it thinks it is already formatted... that is a bad assumption. Let us know if it does not reformat the drive. For anything else, we will need a copy of the syslog to determine what is going on. at the very least, you should see the old parity disk listed in the motherboard BIOS. If it cannot see the drive, then you have a hardware issue. (bad or loose cable) Joe L. PS. Make sure you upgrade to 4.3.1...
June 25, 200818 yr Also check your BIOS menus for RAID settings (Matrix RAID or similar) and turn them off. You want your SATA ports configured for ahci, or SATA mode, not an emulation or RAID mode. It would be helpful if we knew more about your hardware, especially what motherboard and addon cards you have. In checking back to see if you had mentioned your motherboard anywhere, I noticed your first attempt to get help was without any response at all! Sorry, don't know how we all missed it.
June 27, 200818 yr Author Thanks! Unfortunately, I've been busy this week and haven't had a chance to work on adding the additional drive, but now I have a real problem. Yesterday, when adding movies to the Unraid server, the Unraid server locked up. I've never had that happen. I turned the server off and back on, it came up, started doing a parity check and after an hour or so, crashed again. I restarted it again and it ran for over two hours on a parity check. When I went to bed it was still working, but I noticed it had 8 sync errors. When I got up this morning the system had crashed again. To a novice like me, it sounds like I've got a bad drive, but the system just hasn't been stable since I upgraded my parity drive last weekend and then upgraded the system to 4.3.1. My MB is an ASUStek Computer INC. Salmon 1.03 (HP Pavilion), 200 megahertz. The BIOS is Phoenix Technologies 3.14 (08/11/2005). Parity Drive is a Samsung 750gb and the two other drives are Maxtor 500gb. All my drives are running off a PCI to SATA Card I purchased at Fry's. I don't know the manufacturer. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
June 27, 200818 yr Author Here's some additional information from the server. System is locked, no command prompt. Hope this helps. Sorry, I don't know how to save screen print in Linux. [<c01044f7>]common_interrupt+0x23/0x28 [<c01044f7>]common_interrupt+0x23/0x28 [<c0102b34>]default_idle+0x3e/0x53 [<c01024e3>]cpu_idle+0x3e/0x53 [<c03c099e>]start_kernel+0x237?0x23c [<c03c0303>]unknown_bootoption+0x0/0x195 ============================ Code: e8 93 f9 ff ff 89 e8 83 c0 14 74 3d 83 7d 14 00 74 37 8b 48 08 8d 59 e8 8b 43 18 0f 18 00 90 8d 45 1c 39 c1 74 23 8b 11 8b 41 04 <89> 42 04 89 10 c7 41 04 00 02 20 00 c7 01 00 01 10 00 ff 4d 14 EIP: [<c0148d68>]_ _ slab_alloc+0x81/0x377 ss:ESP 0068:c)3bfe24 Kernel panic-not syncing: Fatal exception in interrup
June 27, 200818 yr With a kernel panic, no screen capture is possible anyway, a syslog either. This is probably a new problem, unrelated to the original. A bad drive can't normally crash the system (although I have seen a corrupted file system crash the ReiserFS driver, which does not look the case here). The sync errors are to be expected after these crashes. Please try booting again, and capture a syslog to the flash drive at various points of operation. Try to crash the system deliberately, but make sure you have a syslog from just before each attempt, since you can't capture one once it crashes. I would like to see the very last one available. Could you also attach a copy of your syslinux.cfg file from the flash drive? I would like to check what boot options are set. Have you had a chance to check your BIOS settings? Earlier, you said "my system would periodically boot under what looks like the motherboard Raid configuration". Can you be more specific as to what messages you saw?
June 27, 200818 yr That is a kernel panic. Usually associated with a memory error, although weird errors and corruption in the file-systems could cause the cpu to attempt to access memory at an invalid address. First step, make sure the memory is configured in the BIOS correctly. It might be at the wrong voltage. Second step, run the memory test, available from the unRAID boot console, at least several full passes. Until you know your memory is good, nothing else matters. It might be set up at the wrong speed, the wrong voltage, or wrong timing. Perhaps when you added the new parity drive, the BIOS settings got reset. (Some motherboards try to "help" you when you don't expect it.) Your symptoms of only being able to boot 2 out of 3 times indicate an underlying hardware issue. Bad or incorrectly configured Memory is the most suspect. If the memory tests pass, then use the procedure in the wiki to check each of your data drive file-systems for corruption. (there is no file-system on the parity drive, so don't run reiserfsck on it) http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Check_Disk_Filesystems With your server booted, run the smartctl on each of your drives. (also described in the wiki) to determine their health. http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting#Hard_drive_failures Sure, it could be your new parity drive disk hardware, but it could just as easily be something else. If you get this far, a copy of the syslog would help http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting#Capturing_your_syslog Joe L.
June 27, 200818 yr Author Here's the syslinux.cfg file. default menu.c32 menu title Lime Technology LLC prompt 0 timeout 50 label unRAID OS menu default kernel bzimage append initrd=bzroot rootdelay=10 acpi=off nolapic noapic label Memtest86+ kernel memtest I have tried to reboot without any luck. The system either stops on the Raid screen or just "beeps". The "Raid" screen is evidently coming off the PCI-SATA card and not the MB BIOS. The message says, "SiI 3114 SATARAID BIOS Version 5.0.18.
June 27, 200818 yr Author I ran the memtest for an hour, no errors. I'm a novice with Linux and I can't get the command for the system log to work. Also, I can no longer access from a browser. For some reason, it won't recognize the fixed IP address even though it's in the config file. I've reloaded 4.3.1 on my boot drive, and that didn't help. I'm in quite a mess.
June 27, 200818 yr I would upgrade to the latest bios on the sata controller. http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=28&cid=15&ctid=2&osid=0& I had to upgrade mine one a SiI 3112 chipset and it solved my missing drive problem.
June 28, 200818 yr Author Can anyone tell me how to update the BIOS on a PCI device in my unRaid server. Only drive I have on my server is the flash (boot) drive. Unfortunately, I'm not very versed in Linux.
June 28, 200818 yr I used a usb floppy drive and booted to a dos disk to update the driver. If you have another usb drive you could probably boot to dos off of that too
June 28, 200818 yr Or you can borrow an ordinary floppy drive and temporarily hook it up. Then create a bootable DOS floppy, and copy the non-RAID firmware file to it, plus the firmware burn/update tool. You have added the 3 additional parameters ("acpi=off nolapic noapic") to the start line, the line beginning with Append in the syslinux.cfg. Although they are being recommended in cases where some users have problems getting unRAID to boot, they are NOT desirable, unless absolutely necessary, and then only the minimum parameter(s) to get it working. Are you absolutely positive you need all 3 of them, or any of them at all? They are workarounds, to get around buggy BIOS's, and they generally limit performance or turn off subsystems such as ACPI, and although the difference may or may not be detectable, you don't want any of them unless you have to have one or more of them to boot properly. Did you have problems booting unRAID that caused you to add these? Try adding only one at a time, and determine exactly which one or combination of 2 of them will boot fine.
June 28, 200818 yr Author OK, I'm convinced that I have a problem with the motherboard. It came from an HP Pavilion that had some problems and I used it to see if unRaid worked for me. Since I am now sold on unRaid, I've gone out and purchased a new MB (MSI P6N Diamond) and Processor (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHZ). Are there any "gotchas" I need to be aware of with bringing over the drives from my other system?
June 28, 200818 yr OK, I'm convinced that I have a problem with the motherboard. It came from an HP Pavilion that had some problems and I used it to see if unRaid worked for me. Since I am now sold on unRaid, I've gone out and purchased a new MB (MSI P6N Diamond) and Processor (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHZ). Are there any "gotchas" I need to be aware of with bringing over the drives from my other system? Make sure you write down which drive/serial number is the current parity drive. After you boot up on the new hardware, make sure the parity drive gets assigned to the parity slot on the devices page. (The other data drives are not as critical, but if you use the /disk1,2,3 shares currently and want the contents of disk1 to stay the same, make sure the same drive is still assigned to slot1, etc.) Make sure you set the memory voltage on the motherboard correctly for your memory. Other than that, there are no other gotcha's I can think of. When upgrading the motherboard resist ANY temptation to add new disk drives in addition to the ones currently in use until you get the unRAID up on your new hardware. If you stop the array before migrating the hardware, odds are you won't even need a new parity check on the new hardware. Do NOT use the "restore" button. Especially if your array shows any "red" icons, otherwise you could erase your data on drives not functioning. (All drives should be green as long as the parity drive is assigned to the parity slot) Joe L.
June 28, 200818 yr Joe: Thanks--How do I know what the correct voltage s/b? I would assume you would look up the specific model/make of your memory strips on their manufacturer's web-site, and see what they recommend. Many of the "faster" memory needs more than the normal 1.8 volts supplied by most motherboards. In fact, some older motherboards can't supply the voltage needed by some memory strips, because they cannot go above 2 volts., and the memory strip needs 2.2 volts. Setting the correct memory timing and voltage is critical on any motherboard, especially if you care about your data. Getting it wrong will just result in corrupt data and frequent crashes. Joe L.
June 28, 200818 yr Did you check the memory voltage setting when it was suggested earlier in this thread? It sure sounds like you did not. You said you ran the memory test, we assumed (probably incorrectly) that you checked the bios settings.
June 28, 200818 yr Author Joe: Thanks again for all your help! I'll check the voltage requirements on the memory. I'm back up on my new motherboard, sorta. For some reason I can't get the ethernet to work. I've run ifconfig and the fixed IP is correct. I've changed the bios on the MB to have the Onboard Lan Rom enabled, but no luck. My motherboard is the MSI P6N Diamond with 2 Gb lan ports. It came with a NVIDIA driver disk, but the doc says it's for Windows only. Everything else seems to be fine. I set the bios to boot off the USB, and the hard drives show up properly in the bios. Unfortunately, I can't telenet or browser in to see what's going on. Any ideas? Charles
June 28, 200818 yr Joe: Thanks again for all your help! I'll check the voltage requirements on the memory. I'm back up on my new motherboard, sorta. For some reason I can't get the ethernet to work. I've run ifconfig and the fixed IP is correct. I've changed the bios on the MB to have the Onboard Lan Rom enabled, but no luck. My motherboard is the MSI P6N Diamond with 2 Gb lan ports. It came with a NVIDIA driver disk, but the doc says it's for Windows only. Everything else seems to be fine. I set the bios to boot off the USB, and the hard drives show up properly in the bios. Unfortunately, I can't telenet or browser in to see what's going on. Any ideas? Charles The supplied driver disk is for windows... useless for unRAID. Can you log in via the system console as "root" ? Did you try plugging the Ethernet cable into the OTHER lan port on the motherboard? unRAID only supports 1 port and it might be using the OTHER one. If you can log in on the system console, type ls /boot Do you see files there? You should see syslinux.cfg, the config folder, etc. If no files, then possibly the USB drive did not mount at /boot. That would cause the network driver to not be loaded, and result in no network connectivity. I did a quick search on Google looking for your motherboard in combination with linux. No real mentions of the network module other than get it from the vendor (and presumeably compile it yourself) I think it has the RTL8211BL chipset for the networking. I see nothing to speak of looking for it under Slackware. (unRAID is built on Slackware) Are you certain that motherboard is supported under Linux? You might need to consider adding a supported network card and disable both on-board LAN ports. Some of the other folks on this board might have ideas. Joe L.
June 28, 200818 yr Author Joe: Setting up the second ethernet port did the trick! I'm back up and in process of doing the parity check. So much faster than my earlier configuration. To answer an earlier question, the BIOS in my earlier MB didn't have the capability to check the voltage. This one does. Thanks again for all you patient help!
June 28, 200818 yr That is great news.... do me a favor, log in via the console and type lsmod It will show the drivers loaded into the kernel. I'm curious which network card driver is used. For some statistics: ifconfig eth0 For more information on connect speed to your LAN: ethtool eth0 Please describe the bios options you eventually used to get it up and running. And describe physically which LAN port is the one working. (Just might help the next person to get their board going) Yes, older motherboards cannot use the newer memory, as they cannot set the voltage to that needed. Out of curiosity, what voltage does your memory need? Joe L.
June 29, 200818 yr Author OK, here's the drivers loaded into the kernel. module Size Used by md_mod 50,248 2 fuse 34,580 3 forcedeth 39,564 0 sata_nv 19,848 3 amd74xx 7,952 0 permanent ide_core 88,236 1 amd74xx sata_sil24 12,164 0 libata 122,552 2 sata_nv,sata_sil24 Important data on the eth0 Speed 1000mb/s Duples Full Port MII PHYAD 1 As far as memory, I have 2 Crucial 1GB sticks. (It's more than I wanted, but got a great deal at Fry's). It is DDR2-663-5300 Unbuffered. If I'm looking at it correctly, it is 1.8v. As far as setting up the bios, I just followed the suggestions in the wiki. If I remember correctly, all I did was disabled floppy drive; Disabled sound; Set boot order to USB. Enabled the Lan Rom and Esata Rom. The parallel ports, serial etc were already disabled because there was nothing connected. Please let me know if you need anything else, or if you have any suggestions. I'm trying to get educated on Linux and the voltage issue, so feel free to tell me if something doesn't look right. Thanks again for your help.
June 29, 200818 yr I'm not sure what you're saying about enabling the LAN rom and the esata rom. The lan rom is typically for booting off the network? Don't know on the esata rom. Peter
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