I just tried upgrading unRAID from version 4.5.6 to 4.7.  When it booted up the array was stopped.  One of my drives is being reported smaller than it was under 4.5.6 and is telling me that the replacement drive has to be the same size or larger than the original.  What's weird is that I didn't replace the drive.  It's a Seagate 1.5TB drive, model ST31500541AS.  Under 4.5.6 the size shows up as 1,465,137,496.  Under 4.7 it displays 1,465,137,492.  I replaced the bzimage, bzroot, and memtest files with the ones that came with the 4.7 download to perform the upgrade.  I restored the original files and rebooted and now it reports the correct size again.  I'd like to keep the server current, but not if it's going to do something hinky with my drives.

Sounds like an HPA issue. Do you have a gigabyte mobo or was the drive connected to one previously? Search for HPA on the forum, there are some solid instructions on how to remove the HPA and rebuild the drive.

You need to correct your HPA issues. I think my signature has a link to the topic. If not, search the forums for HPA.

Thanks.  I am using a Gigabyte motherboard.  I'm surprised this hasn't cropped up with my server before since I've upgraded it on several occasions.  It's strange that it only affected one drive.

Checked my syslog and found this:

 

Sep  3 11:59:59 Tower kernel: ata17.00: HPA detected: current 2930275055, native 2930277168

 

I tried using "hdparm -N p293077168 /dev/sdr" and it aborted telling me that I was trying to reduce the size of the drive.  I also tried using the HDAT2 boot CD method and it gave me errors as well.  I did upgrade the BIOS on the motherboard to a later version that turns off HPA with no luck.

 

I'm not sure what my options are at this point.  What would happen if I replaced the drive?  Would it be better to simply copy the data over to another drive, insert it into the array, and let it rebuild the parity drive?

If that was the actual hdparm line you used, you missed a number. It should be 2930277168 according to the line in your log.

I used the correct number with hdparm.  I just fat-fingered it when I wrote the post.  Here's what I get when I enter hdparm -N /dev/sdr:

 

"max sectors  = 18446744072344859375/11041584, HPA setting seems invalid"

 

I also tried using the above number(s) and still get an error.

 

I'm thinking my best course of action would be to copy the contents of the drive over to other drives in the array (I just added five 750GB drives so there's plenty of empty space), delete the drive with HPA, perform a low-level format (does preclear.sh do this?), place the cleared drive in the array as a new drive, and perform a new parity check.

I used the correct number with hdparm.  I just fat-fingered it when I wrote the post.  Here's what I get when I enter hdparm -N /dev/sdr:

 

"max sectors  = 18446744072344859375/11041584, HPA setting seems invalid"

 

I also tried using the above number(s) and still get an error.

 

I'm thinking my best course of action would be to copy the contents of the drive over to other drives in the array (I just added five 750GB drives so there's plenty of empty space), delete the drive with HPA, perform a low-level format (does preclear.sh do this?), place the cleared drive in the array as a new drive, and perform a new parity check.

That will NOT work.  pre-clearing drive DOES NOT remove HPA. (and it cannot, and no "format" utility can either. ) You can use SeaTools,or some other HPA removal utility. 

I just tried using SeaTools for DOS.  The offending drive happens to be a Seagate so I was really hoping SeaTools would do the trick.  I created a boot CD and put the drive with HPA in another PC and booted from the CD.  I wasn't sure what option to use so I selected the one that resets the capacity to maximum (I saw no mention of HPA anywhere).  I returned the drive to the unRAID server but it's still showing HPA on the disk.  Is there a different option in SeaTools that I should have used?  I'm sorting through the various threads on the subject so maybe I'll come across something.

I tried the HDAT2 method again, this time with the drive pulled from the server and connected to a different PC.  It appears to have cleared the HPA successfully, but I'm running a parity check while I'm at work so I'll see what happens when I get home this evening.  If all went well I should be able to upgrade to 4.7.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Apparently the HDAT2 method didn't clear the HPA and running the parity check didn't change anything.  I decided to remove the drive from the array, but first I moved everything off the drive to other drives within the array.  Once everything had been moved I pulled the drive and re-initialized the configuration, causing it to rebuild parity from the existing drives.  After the parity check was completed I was able to upgrade to 4.7 successfully.

 

I installed the drive with the HPA in another PC and reran the HDAT2 utility.  This time it appeared to be successful in clearing the HPA.

 

Now for the fun part.  Because of the HPA incident and with the latest versions of unRAID now able to support up to 24 drives I decided it was time to upgrade the motherboard.  I picked up an Asus F1A55M LX PLUS motherboard and an AMD A4-3400 Liano CPU from Newegg for about $120.  I also upgraded from a Corsair TX650W PSU to a Corsair 850W model based on what I read in the PSU recommendations for unRAID.

 

I installed the new hardware this morning and everything appeared to boot up fine, although I had to play with some of the BIOS settings until I found the right ones.  Turns out that the optimized defaults with one or two other settings worked best.  When I tried to connect via my web browser on my main PC I was unable to make a connection.  I ran "ipconfig eth0" from the command line and it showed I had an IP address assigned to the PC, but it simply would not connect.  After many frustrating attempts I eventually disabled the onboard LAN and installed an Intel PCI gigabit card.  Once I did that I was able to connect and reassign drives until I got back to the original configuration.  I installed a new drive in the slot vacated by the HPA drive and now I'm in the process of clearing it so it can become part of the array.

 

I'll try and see if I can get the onboard LAN to work after the new drive gets configured.  Otherwise, I may be looking at an RMA with Newegg for another board.  The upside is that I'm using faster memory and the array boots much faster than the old configuration so overall I'm pretty pleased.