I've never come across this before so I'm not entirely sure how to proceed from here.

 

I've added the drive to the system and set of a -A preclear_disk on it as I have done in the past with WD drives. I went into unmenu to check is showing the progress ok (so I can remove the TFT from my server) and noticed the little HPA thing beside the drive.

 

From a quick forum and google search its looking like this isn't a good thing but now I've started the preclear I'm not sure what to do next?

 

I've got 2 of these drives to replace two HD203UJ 1TB drives so I'm guessing I'll need to take the same steps on both. I'm not overly sure that HPA is but it looks like it could be something created by some motherboards? I got the drives 2nd hand having been tested and zero'd by the previous owner so its possible this HPA thing was created at his end.

 

So do I/can I cancel the preclear?

What is the correct course of action to get these two drives in order?

 

If required I have enough hardware to setup a 2nd 'free' unraid box to do the required / pre_clear before adding back to my main box if this is safer?

 

I'm running 4.7 and have attached the syslog if required, although i expect this isn't something specific to my setup - just lack of correct knowledge

syslog.txt

Is it HDA or HPA?

sorry - HPA

 

 

I've found a bit of a guide on using hdat2 to remove the HPA setup (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6806.0).

 

Given all I have done so far is put the HDD in the machine and set off a pre-clear - I'm I safe to presume I shouldn't have broken anything

Never had it, but maybe this will help:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7042.0

 

 

Update unmenu

Thanks mr-hexen - however can you expand on that a little please? Is there some issue with unmenu reporting this incorrectly?

So I've had a play this afternoon. Removed both HDD's from my main unraid box, created myself a 2nd usb with the free version and setup a new test box.

 

On the test box, confirmed with HDAT2 tool that one drive had HPA setup and one didn't. Using the tool removed the HPA then rebooted to the unraid USB.

 

On the USB, installed unmenu for monitoring its progress then I've set both drives running at the same time with a preclear_disk.sh -A

 

Just have to wait 24 hours now what happens. All this has been done on version 4.7 as thats what my main box runs so thought this would maybe be a good idea since I don't know if anything is different about the HDD setups on higher versions.

 

mr-hexen - I've checked my unmenu setup, i've compared all the files on my server with a fresh install using the unmenu_install script and both match. I'm not sure if I'm missing something obvious or not but I can't see what needs updating?

usually a new drive gets labelled as HPA if unmenu is an older copy and the drive "specs" haven't been loaded in.

So there is some kind of database in unmenu it looks up against?

 

Is this a specific file I could double check?

So there is some kind of database in unmenu it looks up against?

 

Is this a specific file I could double check?

Press the "Check for Updates" button on the user-scripts page.  It will do the check for you.  Press the "Install Updates" button if any show up.

 

Yes, it is one file with a list of the normally expected drive sizes.  A drive with a non-standard size will be flagged as possibly having an HPA.  myMain.conf has the list. (I think that is the file, but I'm going by memory here)

That would make sense as I did already check for updates and it flagged some error on my main machine to do with myMain.conf but I presume that was my config file for it so didn't want to push and overwrite it.

 

Out of the two drives, I did confirm one had a HPA setup but I've killed it off so both drive have full native capacity now and are about 60% pre-read.

 

I've also asked about the firmware as I only found out about the firmware issues on these HD204UI drives a few years back - both have been reflashed before I received them as the original owner knew about the issue so hopefully good to go once preclear finishes sometime this week. I've only ever done a a single pass so i'm tempted to give this a couple more cycles just to be safe.

However... you just need to look in your own syslog.  It has:

Oct  7 18:39:23 unraid kernel: ata8.00: HPA detected: current 3907027055, native 3907029168

Oct  7 18:39:23 unraid kernel: ata8.00: ATA-8: SAMSUNG HD204UI, 1AQ10001, max UDMA/133

 

You can use the hdparm command to fix it, BUT you'll need to un-assign it from your array first, as changing its size will make unRAID think it is a different disk.

 

Basically, un-assign it.  Start the array with it un-assigned.

use

hdparm -N -p 3907029168 /dev/sde

on it.

Then stop the array and re-assign it.  Re-start the array. It will be detected as a new drive and the contents of the drive re-constructed onto itself. 

 

If the drive is not yet assigned to the array, you can skip those two steps.  You WILL need to run the preclear again on the disk AFTER you remove the HPA.

 

You can test for the HPA by typing

hdparm -N /dev/sde

 

Joe L.

thankfully that entry is from when I put the new drive in my main rig. These are the disks I have right now, working away:

 

parity device: pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-0:0:0:0 host0 (sda) WDC_WD20EARX-00PASB0_WD-WCAZAC736543

disk1 device: pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-4:0:0:0 host4 (sdc) SAMSUNG_HD103UJ_S13PJ90S126253

disk2 device: pci-0000:04:00.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 host14 (sde) ST31000322CS_9VX0LQYY

disk3 device: pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-5:0:0:0 host5 (sdd) SAMSUNG_HD103UJ_S13PJDWQ736281

disk4 device: pci-0000:04:00.0-scsi-1:0:0:0 host15 (sdf) WDC_WD20EARX-008FB0_WD-WCAZAD839140

 

I've got a spare hole in my 3-in-1 bay so initially I setup the HD204UI in the main rig so It could sit there doing its preclear and be assigned straight in as a replacement. That HD204UI is now one of the two in my spare PC preclearing. I wasn't too sure I'd I needed to preclear after removing the HPA so I decided best to just check both drives with HDAT2, remove the HPA as needed and set off both drives to preclear at the same time. Did a bit of searching to find how to do multiple disks on one PC so I've done both via the console and ALT-F1/ALT-F2

 

Thankfully I questioned this before I had chance to assign the new disks - guess that a good side effect of it taking so long to precheck