Preclear.sh results - Questions about your results? Post them here.

[skoj]

I'm having an odd problem. Running 5.0-rc3 & preclear 1.13.

 

I had a drive red-ball, I've replaced the drive, it's showing as "not installed" in the unraid web gui.

 

Next step is to preclear the new disk which I do by executing :

/boot/preclear_disk.sh -A /dev/sdg

 

I'm certain that sdg is the replacement disk (and I haven't added it to the array) but I get the following error:

Sorry, /dev/sdg is already assigned as part of the unRAID array.
Clearing will NOT be performed

 

Any idea how to troubleshoot this problem?

[Beer40oz]

Hi Joe... thought I would give the Samsung a shot.... just finished Pre Clear....

 

Please let me know if now I can add it to my array.... thank you. 

SAMSUNG_FINAL.txt

[Lacehim]

skoj, you can't preclear a drive assigned to the array.  If you want to preclear it you will have to stop the array, remove it from the array, then preclear and then assign it back to the array.

[RobJ]

Next step is to preclear the new disk which I do by executing :

/boot/preclear_disk.sh -A /dev/sdg

 

I'm certain that sdg is the replacement disk (and I haven't added it to the array) but I get the following error:

Sorry, /dev/sdg is already assigned as part of the unRAID array.
Clearing will NOT be performed

 

Any idea how to troubleshoot this problem?

 

Remember that the device symbols (sda, sdg, etc) may change at each boot.  Is it possible that the drive was sdg on the previous boot, but not in the current session?  Try a 'preclear_disk.sh -l' first, to verify current symbol assignments.

[Joe L.]

also, you can use

hdparm -A /dev/sdg

and

fdisk -l /dev/sdg

to learn more about the specific device.  (odds are VERY HIGH) /dev/sdg is not the disk you think it is)

[RobJ]

Hi Joe... thought I would give the Samsung a shot.... just finished Pre Clear....

 

Please let me know if now I can add it to my array.... thank you. 

 

I don't know about your Samsung, but this Seagate 2TB drive looks fine.

Device Model:     ST2000DL004 HD204UI
Serial Number:    *********2495

[skoj]

skoj, you can't preclear a drive assigned to the array.  If you want to preclear it you will have to stop the array, remove it from the array, then preclear and then assign it back to the array.

 

Thanks, this turned out to be the problem. I never explicitly removed the failed disk from the array. I shutdown, unplugged the failed drive and restarted. The GUI led me to believe the drive was automatically removed from the array but it wasn't.

 

I couldn't remove the drive from the array at this stage so I plugged the replacement drive into a different SATA port. That was enough for the preclear script to recognize it as a new disk and do its thing.

 

The replacement drive is in the array now and all is well.

 

Thanks everyone for the advice.

[Beer40oz]

Hi Joe... thought I would give the Samsung a shot.... just finished Pre Clear....

 

Please let me know if now I can add it to my array.... thank you. 

 

I don't know about your Samsung, but this Seagate 2TB drive looks fine.

Device Model:     ST2000DL004 HD204UI
Serial Number:    *********2495

 

 

JAJA I know but it is the SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI ....  It's not nice Seagate bought them.... but hey.... this drive is quick....  seems been doing good. And it's temps are about 3C less then my other WD's and Hitachi...

  thanx 

 

Oh seems the HD204UI is a little more noisy from wake up....

[mdumont1]

I have this 1TB Seagate Drive. I backed up my data and some of it was corrupt already so I lost some of it and then ran the preclear script to see if the drive is failing. I ran it the first time and there seems to be some strange numbers. I'm a little concerned about the "a change of -509 in the number of sectors pending re-allocation".

 

I have attached the results from the first run

 

After getting all of this not so happy result I decided to run the script again but this time with 3 cycles. I have attached the results from the second run.

 

I'm not quite sure how to understand these results. It seems like the drive is continuously having a different amounts of sectors pending reallocation yet it always ends with

3 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear.

3 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear,

  the number of sectors re-allocated did not change.

 

During the preclear there were read errors that were displayed in syslog.  Also, this drive was previously being used in a cheap external enclosure before being moved to my unRaid box.

 

Is this drive failling? Should I replace it? If so how can I tell based on the preclear results?

 

Thanks

Seagate-preclear-2ndRun.txt

Seagate-preclear-1stRun.txt

[Joe L.]

The first preclear showed that:

 

1. The drive had failed SMART at some point in the past on an over-temperature threshold. 

(It was currently within temp limits)

 

The drive started with 3 sectors that had been re-allocated, and with 517 that were pending re-allocation.

 

The pre-clear then read the entire drive... allowing the drive to detect any additional sectors it could not read.

It did not find any, so there were 517 sectors that were pending re-allocation.

 

The pre-clear then write zeros to the entire drive.  The disk FIRST tried re-writing the original location on the disk platter rather than re-allocation.  That apparently worked for 509 sectors.  (or rather, after the post-read, there were only 8 sectors pending re-allocation, so apparently 509 were re-written in place rather than re-allocated since no additional sectors had been re-allocated)

 

Every subsequent pass seems to detect a small number of un-readable sectors, and apparently they always seem to be able to be re-written in place.  No additional re-allocated sectors are occurring.

 

I would not trust the drive.  (unless you are using it on a marginal power supply, in which case, it might just be reacting to the voltages it is being fed, but regardless... unless something changes, odds are you cannot trust it.)

 

Good luck with RMA'ing it.  Some-times manufacturers like to reject a claim when the drive has been subjected to an over-temperature environment.

[Turbobuickguy]

I had some errors on one of my drives recently added into my array http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=20934.0 . 

 

The attached is the preclear report from the drive I intend to use as my replacement.

preclear_start__WD-WCAV56059030_2012-06-21.txt

preclear_finish__WD-WCAV56059030_2012-06-21.txt

preclear_rpt__WD-WCAV56059030_2012-06-21.txt

[Joe L.]

I had some errors on one of my drives recently added into my array http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=20934.0 . 

 

The attached is the preclear report from the drive I intend to use as my replacement.

looks great.

 

No sectors marked for re-allocation, and none re-allocated.

Nothing else failing or near failing.

 

Joe L.

[chuck23322]

Been awhile since I've added a new disk.  Putting in a new 3TB drive -- running 4 passes of PreClear -- have downloaded and running the latest version of it.

 

Noticed something that looked weird to me.

 

In my "settings" for RC4 -- I have "Default partition format:" = MBR: 4k aligned

 

And I'm running Pre_Clear with:

 

./preclear_disk.sh -M 4 -c 4 /dev/sde

 

I would expect it to run as 4k aligned, starting on sector 64...

 

Disk /dev/sde doesn't contain a valid partition table

########################################################################

invoked as  ./preclear_disk.sh -M 4 -c 4 /dev/sde

########################################################################

(MBR 4k-aligned set. Partition will start on sector 64)

Are you absolutely sure you want to clear this drive?

(Answer Yes to continue. Capital 'Y', lower case 'es'):

 

Says "will start on sector 64" -- what I would expect...

 

Then the pre-clear starts...

 

================================================================== 1.13

=                unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sde

=              cycle 1 of 4, partition start on sector 1

= Disk Pre-Read in progress: 0% complete

= ( 0  bytes of  3,000,592,982,016  read )

=

 

That says starts on sector 1

 

Huh?

[Joe L.]

For disks that will have a GPT partition defined by unRAID a "protective" MBR partition is put into place to fool other older utilities into thinking the entire disk is allocated even if they have not been upgraded to handle GPT partitions.  (most older programs have not)  I suppose that the next time I update the preclear script I can describe that "protective" partition better.

 

The protective partition starts on sector 1 and goes for the entire drive possible, using the bits available in the MBR structure.  Since there are only 16 bits, the biggest disk partition the old style MBR can define is 2.2TB.  The protective partition is therefore defined as 2.2TB.

 

That protective MBR is not actually used on GPT formatted drives...  Think of it as a placeholder to make older utilities and programs happy.

 

The actual GPT partition is always 4k-aligned and defined in an area further past the first 512 bytes in the disk where the MBR is located.  It utilizes the entire 3TB drive.

 

Joe L.

[Alexandro]

Dear All,

Could you please take a look at my log?

I started the preclear with a screen support but during the night the connection was lost. I followed the howto re-attach to the screen but didn't managed to do it. Then i ask for a log:  grep preclear /var/log/syslog | todos >> /boot/preclear_results.txt

 

Here is what I had. It is strange that the preclear was finished in only 9:14 hrs.

The drive is WD30EZRX.

Thanks in advance

preclear_results.txt

[Joe L.]

Dear All,

Could you please take a look at my log?

I started the preclear with a screen support but during the night the connection was lost. I followed the howto re-attach to the screen but didn't managed to do it. Then i ask for a log:  grep preclear /var/log/syslog | todos >> /boot/preclear_results.txt

 

Here is what I had. It is strange that the preclear was finished in only 9:14 hrs.

The drive is WD30EZRX.

Thanks in advance

Well, you used the "-n"option. 

 

      -n = Do NOT perform preread and postread of entire disk that would allow

            SMART firmware to identify bad blocks.

 

Therefore, it only wrote to the disk.  You asked it to not bother to locate any unREADABLE sectors.  It therefore could not re-allocate any that were un-readable. (since it does not yet know they are un-readable... it has never tried to read them)

 

Normally, the disk is fully read first, to allow it to determine if any sectors are un-readable.  Normally it is subsequently re-read AFTER zeroing to ensure the zeros were properly written.  You elected to skip both those steps when you used the "-n" option.

 

the portions of the process you elected to skip are why the disk finished so quickly. 

 

Good luck.  The drive may be added to an existing array without it clearing the drive, but you might want to monitor it more closely as you load it with data.  At the least, perform a full manual parity check once installed. (that will read it in its entirety)

[Alexandro]

Thank you very much.

I will start another preclear.

Best regards.

[Riker]

Hello,

 

First time poster, and virgin unRAID user to boot. Be gentle, please. 

 

I read through all of the configuration tutorial on the Wiki and tried to follow it very, very closely. Wondering if someone could review the 2 attached preclear logs and advise if anything appears to be out of place. I'll say upfront that I have my doubts as to whether something is strange with the Seagate 3GB HD I pre-cleared. Seemed odd that it took over double the time to clear as the 2GB HD and I had some troubles with that disk when I attempted to use it in another gaming machine build awhile back...

 

Perhaps someone can tell me if they see anything out of place. Very much appreciate it!

 

Thank you,

 

Riker (Colin)

 

Update: Edited to remove my email address from logs. Thank you to S80_UK for pointing that out!

preclear_results-Seagate2GB.txt

preclear_results-Seagate3GB.txt

[S80_UK]

You may want to edit out your email address from those logs...

[Joe L.]

Your disks all look fine.

 

 

[Riker]

Thank you, Joe. Your review is greatly appreciated!

 

 

[shEiD]

Hi, my first time trying unRAID and linux of any kind. Using "unRAID Server 5.0-rc5 AiO" free version. Followed the guides on wiki, unraid booted ok, used the preclear_disk.sh on 3 of my old SAMSUNG HD501LJ 500GB dirves. The results are in the attached files. Total newb here, but everything seems ok? All 3 drives are barely used, they spent their lives in drawer Going to try to create unraid array now...

 

A couple of questions:

[*]Would very much appreciate, if someone verifies the results, that drives are ok.

[*]Whats the preferred method to post the results: via attached files, or in a "code" insert?

[*]I ran 3 simultaneous preclears (putty + screen), and used grep preclear /var/log/syslog | todos >> /boot/preclear_results.txt (as per wiki) to get the log. This way all 3 drives logs were flushed in a single file. I separated them manually. Is there any way to get the results written to separate files for every drive or even cycle?

[*] Am I correct assuming, that the number in preclear_disk-diff[XXXXX] on every line is used to differentiate the preclear script runs  in the log? I ran a single cycle on 3 drives, so I thought the number was for the drives, but looking at some other peoples results, I noticed, that it seems that every cycle of the same drive has its own number?

[*]It's been more than 10 hours since I ran preclear, but myMain always shows the drives as spinning. Why haven't they been spun down after an hour of inactivity? Is it because they're unassigned? (see picture below)

preclear_results_SAMSUNG-HD501LJ_S0MUJ1EPC45373_2012-Jun-29.txt

preclear_results_SAMSUNG-HD501LJ_S0MUJ1EPC45374_2012-Jun-29.txt

preclear_results_SAMSUNG-HD501LJ_S0MUJ13P313683_2012-Jun-29.txt

[RobJ]

1. Would very much appreciate, if someone verifies the results, that drives are ok.

    All 3 drives look great.

2. Whats the preferred method to post the results: via attached files, or in a "code" insert?

    Attached files is better (as you did).

5. It's been more than 10 hours since I ran preclear, but myMain always shows the drives as spinning. Why haven't they been spun down after an hour of inactivity? Is it because they're unassigned? (see picture below)

    UnRAID manages spindown only for assigned drives, and you haven't done that yet.  You can manually spin them down in the UnMENU interface using the little spin icons for each drive.

 

[shEiD]

@ RobJ, thank you.

[jbuszkie]

I have a 250GB drive I put in my xbox.  Twice now it has magically come back as unformatted.  So I yanked it out

and ran preclear on it. 

I beleive I bought this as a factory reconditioned drive.  I'm sure I ran pre-clear on it before I threw it in the xbox.

 

There is also an ATA error in the smart results.

 

Here are the results.  think it should be RMA'ed??  9 pending seems like too many.. 

 

 

 

 

============================================================================

** Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sda  /tmp/smart_finish_sda

                ATTRIBUTE  NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS      RAW_VALUE

          Seek_Error_Rate =  100    200            0        ok          0

      Temperature_Celsius =    88    108            0        ok          55

No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW

 

2 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear.

9 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1.

0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1.

0 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear,

    a change of -2 in the number of sectors pending re-allocation.

0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear.

0 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear,

    the number of sectors re-allocated did not change.

============================================================================

250gb.txt