May 8, 201313 yr Hello everyone. This is probably addressed somewhere, but for the life of me I can't find it. The motherboard in my unraid sever died, RIP. I moved the USB stick, and plugged in one hard drive to another computer just to test if things worked on another computer. The system booted fine, and I could see in the web GUI the drive listed in "Devices". It appears all settings, etc are there. So I believe all my drives are still good, and I do know which one is the parity disk, only by size (largest drive). The problem is I do not know what logical assignment the other drives previously had, and I'm not sure of the procedure for assigning them again in another system. Could someone tell me how, or point me to the procedure somewhere? Thank you in advance.
May 8, 201313 yr Are you not running a version of 5.0? 5.0 remembers the drive arrangements so all you have to boot up and everything will be in the correct order. That is as long as you didn't actually select the drive on the other when it was listed in devices, you just clicked the arrow on the list.
May 8, 201313 yr Author Hey, thanks for the reply. No, it is version 4.4.2. I've never had any reason to change anything, as everything has worked great for a long time. Also, no I didn't choose to assign the drive, instead leaving it alone for now.
May 8, 201313 yr If you know for sure which is the parity drive then it is easy. You can assign the data drives in any order you like. Now, if you've set specific permissions on disk1 vs. disk3, then you'll need to reset those, but any data drive can be assigned to any data slot. If you do not know which drive was the parity drive, do not assign the parity drive at all. Assign only the data drives. When you start the array all the data drives should be available. Then you can re-assign the parity drive. If ANY drive shows up as unformatted STOP and get guidance. DO NOT FORMAT ANY DRIVE. Joe L.
May 8, 201313 yr Author Thanks Joe L, I had a feeling it would not be too difficult. I do know the parity drive, so to sum up: Install all drives Boot system Login web GUI and assign all data drives Start array Assign parity drive Don't format anything Thanks for the guidance!
May 9, 201313 yr Thanks Joe L, I had a feeling it would not be too difficult. I do know the parity drive, so to sum up: Install all drives Boot system Login web GUI and assign all data drives Start array Assign parity drive Don't format anything Thanks for the guidance! You might find that files that used to be on "disk1" are now on "disk2" (because you've newly assigned them that way) so if that is really important to you then stop the array, swap the assignments, and then re-start it. Joe L.
May 11, 201313 yr Author Well I ran into a problem. I ordered the following controller off of Amazon to move my 4 existing SATA drives into another system, but when I login to the web GUI to add the drives in "Devices", only the IDE drives are listed, not the SATA drives on the PCI controller card. I thought I'd read that the card would work with unRAID, but maybe it requires the newer version of unRAID? Would upgrading to the newer version solve my issue, or is there a better option? The card is: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016CFPUG/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
May 11, 201313 yr Well I ran into a problem. I ordered the following controller off of Amazon to move my 4 existing SATA drives into another system, but when I login to the web GUI to add the drives in "Devices", only the IDE drives are listed, not the SATA drives on the PCI controller card. I thought I'd read that the card would work with unRAID, but maybe it requires the newer version of unRAID? Would upgrading to the newer version solve my issue, or is there a better option? The card is: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016CFPUG/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 can you see the drives in your BIOS? you may have a defective card, or one not seated in the socket all the way if you cannot. if the BIOS cannot see the drives, unRAID will not either. If they do show in the BIOS, then try a newer version of unRAID. (I'd start with the 4.7 release)
May 11, 201313 yr Author Would they show in the BIOS since it's a controller card? I'll go check, and I'll also move the card to a different slot to check that out. One thing I did discover from reading, it does not look like I'll be able to upgrade until I get everything working, as it appears I need to make sure everything is working before moving to the latest release.
May 11, 201313 yr Author The BIOS only shows the motherboard port drives, and moving the card to another slot did not make any difference. I'll check into moving to 4.7, and see if more support for the card is built into that.
May 11, 201313 yr The BIOS only shows the motherboard port drives, and moving the card to another slot did not make any difference. I'll check into moving to 4.7, and see if more support for the card is built into that. If the BIOS does not see the card, NO OS will see it. The BIOS must see it first. 4.7 will not see it either if the BIOS does not see the drives first. Sorry, but apparently your card is dead, or not seated in your socket properly.
May 11, 201313 yr The BIOS only shows the motherboard port drives, and moving the card to another slot did not make any difference. I'll check into moving to 4.7, and see if more support for the card is built into that. If the BIOS does not see the card, NO OS will see it. The BIOS must see it first. 4.7 will not see it either if the BIOS does not see the drives first. Sorry, but apparently your card is dead, or not seated in your socket properly. You may have to enable the card in your BIOS. (don;t know, but no harm looking)
May 11, 201313 yr Author Upgrading to 4.7 didn't help. I understand your point about if the drives are not seen in the BIOS, but I thought that didn't apply to a controller card, as the card supplied the support to the OS, not the BIOS. I tried looking around to see if I needed to enable support for adding in the card, but could not find anything. Maybe it's a bad card, but I have to wonder if it's just not that my motherboard doesn't support it somehow. Thanks for the help.
May 11, 201313 yr It could be a bad card; or you may need to enable the PCI slot in your BIOS. How new is the replacement motherboard? If this is a newer system with primarily PCIe slots, it may not, by default, enable any older PCI slots. Check your BIOS for this. If that is the case, by the way, you'd get MUCH better speeds if you used a PCIe card (preferably an x4 or x8 card if you have an available PCIe x4/x8/x16 slot to plug it in to).
May 12, 201313 yr I will need to dig out my old boards that are in a box somewhere... but I am pretty sure that is the same chipset on your board that worked well for my computers under windows, but were useless with unRAID when I first started my switch over to unRAID with version 4.5.2.
May 12, 201313 yr I will need to dig out my old boards that are in a box somewhere... but I am pretty sure that is the same chipset on your board that worked well for my computers under windows, but were useless with unRAID when I first started my switch over to unRAID with version 4.5.2. SIL3114's absolutely DO work with UnRAID ==> I just confirmed those are the chips on the old PCI SATA cards I had originally used ~ 3 years ago. What COULD be true is that there may be an issue with 3114's and a newer motherboard chipset ... still waiting for an answer r.e. what the make/model is of the replacement motherboard here.
May 12, 201313 yr Looks like the problem I had in the past was a problem with the version of BIOS on the cards I was using at the time, not the chipset itself. More specifically, even though I had used a BIOS update that should have made them work properly with unRAID, the card BIOS was then NOT compatible with the extension capability on my motherboard BIOS! I had to dig through my notes since it had been so long ago now... Looks like I was trying it with some P4 class MSI motherboards. Looking on various forums, other people have also had problems with some MSI motherboards and the 3114 chipsets. Seems like I improperly blamed the add-on cards, when it was a combination of the card and the motherboards I was trying to use them with, and the versions of BIOS on the cards, and mother-boards. I did also come across a few threads about potential data corruption with the 3114 chipset, possibly also related to incompatibilities or incorrect/bad BIOS... They seem to work well for most configurations. As with any hardware change, I would fully test data transfers, followed by a full battery of tests to insure data integrity of the transferred data before relying an anything for my precious data. On swapping arrays between new hardware... I guess it is not the same at version 4.5.3 compared to older versions? On 4.5.3, in the Disk Devices unRAID web interface, it is very easy to see what drive was assigned to which data disk number. Just play with the pull-downs for each disk, till the serial numbers match again for each drive/disk combination. I have moved many drive arrays around from computer to computer and from controller to controller without ever having an issue, or problem. I just always set the drive assignment back to match what unRAID itself tells me it had had previously. I love the feature so much, and use it so frequently, I had not even thought that other versions might not have that... SIDE NOTE: (This is another reason why it would be nice to have a full archive of versions available for download, even those not recommended for new builds etc. That way people could actually test out to see what happens with a specific version to better help people that may be having problems with a specific version of unRAID.)
May 12, 201313 yr Author I will need to dig out my old boards that are in a box somewhere... but I am pretty sure that is the same chipset on your board that worked well for my computers under windows, but were useless with unRAID when I first started my switch over to unRAID with version 4.5.2. SIL3114's absolutely DO work with UnRAID ==> I just confirmed those are the chips on the old PCI SATA cards I had originally used ~ 3 years ago. What COULD be true is that there may be an issue with 3114's and a newer motherboard chipset ... still waiting for an answer r.e. what the make/model is of the replacement motherboard here. The motherboard is an Intel D865GBF. It is an older motherboard, so I don't see it being an issue with newer chipsets. I know I'd get better performance out of PCI Express, but don't have that available to me. Frankly, performance was fine with what I was using, and should be on the current system I've chosen. I chose this system, because it was the only one available to me that had both IDE and SATA ports, which matches the drives I am using. But it only has two motherboard SATA ports, thus the purchase of the card. If I am to somehow enable the motherboard to insert and use the RAID card, what would I look for? I've gone through all the settings, and don't see anything related to the PCI bus where I need to enable/disable the use of inserting a card. Nor do I see any BIOS listed upon boot for the card itself, which I'm used to seeing from other RAID cards I've had in the past. No key combo for entering the card's BIOS seems available.
May 12, 201313 yr The first system I was using with UnRAID was also an Intel 865-based system, so I know that 3114's can work with that chipset. (I replaced that motherboard with a SuperMicro ~ 3 years ago) Check VERY carefully in the BIOS for any settings related to enabling/disabling the PCI slots; and for disk access modes.
May 13, 201313 yr Author The first system I was using with UnRAID was also an Intel 865-based system, so I know that 3114's can work with that chipset. (I replaced that motherboard with a SuperMicro ~ 3 years ago) Check VERY carefully in the BIOS for any settings related to enabling/disabling the PCI slots; and for disk access modes. Oh I looked close, several times, but don't see anything that might be disabled and causing the problem. Here's the latest though, I moved the card to a different Windows system to see if the OS saw it, but it did not. I then booted the same system with the unRAID boot stick, but same thing as before, no offerings in "Devices". I then moved the card to a different PCI slot in the same Windows system, and this time "for the first time" the card's BIOS screen popped up. However, I couldn't do anything, as it was just stuck displaying a drive it found on the controller. Pressing ctrl + s, nor F4 would do anything. Curious, I moved the controller back to the original system from before, and NOW I was getting the controller's BIOS, where I never got it before. However, the same thing, it keeps getting stuck showing one drive reading, and will do nothing. If I remove the drive, then it just states no devices found. So the fact that the card has not worked in either computer the way it seems it should, plus the fact that suddenly the BIOS boot screen is showing up when it did not before, does make me lean towards having a faulty card. I think I will be contacting Amazon and either requesting a replacement, or refund and move on to a different card.
May 13, 201313 yr It's possible that not all of the PCI slots in your older machines are bus-mastering. If that's the case, the card will only work in those that are ... so you'll either need to look at the motherboard documentation, or simply experiment. Once you can see the card's BIOS, try to enter it [it may display the appropriate hot key to do so; if not, try Ctrl-A], and DISABLE the onboard BIOS in the card if that's an option. Not sure that's required with these, but it is with the Adaptec 1430SA's, and certainly won't hurt (since you're not going to use the cards to boot with, you don't need this function). If that doesn't work, regardless of which PCI slot it's in; then the card may in fact be defective. If you by chance have a PCIe slot available, I'd buy a PCIe adapter instead of replacing this card.
May 14, 201313 yr One more thing along with the bus-mastering thought. Many machines also have multiple slots sharing the SAME PCI bus. So you may also need to remove other cards to get the card to work, at least to get to the BIOS and configure it. The mother board bios should properly handle the shared PCI bus configuration... If you do get a refund, I really like the used SAT2-MV8 cards I bought used for about $25 each! Not as fast as PCI-e running on a PCI bus, but very usable! PLUS 8 PORTS!!! Looks like the place I bought my SuperMicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 from has raised the price to $55! Last time I checked, there were a few on eBay for about $35 from a few vendors...
May 16, 201313 yr Author Sorry guys for the delay in getting back on this. Out of town on work, and swamped as well. So one of the systems I tried the card in is fairly new, and I'm sure would have bus mastering, and I did try and move the card around to different slots in each with no better results. As for entering the cards BIOS, I do know the key combination, which is what I was saying before, that when do that, it keeps getting stuck showing one drive reading, and will do nothing. If I remove the drive, then it just states no devices found. By the way, no other cards where on the PCI bus in either system. I think I might try another system before sending the card back, but it might be a couple of days before I'll be able to do so. I'll follow up at some point.
May 18, 201313 yr Author Success!! Soooo... I placed the controller card into a third newer computer, but experienced the same issues. Then I removed all drives from the controller (otherwise it would freeze) and booted into Windows 7, where the card was recognized. I updated the driver, flashed a new BIOS on the RAID controller, and finally when I boot into unRAID, the controller is seen. So it was a BIOS issue on the card itself, and it needed to be updated. So if anyone else ever comes across this card and wants to us it in an unRAID system, here are the steps that worked for me: Download BIOS update for the 3114 controller Remove all hard drives from the controller and boot into Windows 7 Run Windows Update which will find a newer driver for the card Go into Device Manager>Properties for the controller>Tab dealing with the BIOS and flash with newer BIOS Power down>plug drives back in Boot to unRAID and viola!!! Thanks for the help.
May 18, 201313 yr Glad it's all working. I knew 3114's worked with UnRAID ... never even thought about upgrading the BIOS on the card, as my cards are several years old and work perfectly.
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