12 hours ago, landS said:

@gfjardim good day!  I've had need of this wonderful tool once again and have found on the latest and greatest (6.6.3) access of any disk unassigned and the preclear itself fails then requiring a full reboot before disks are visible / usable once again under UD and PC.

 

Uninstalling unassigned devices (temporary) resolved the issue.  Would it be possible to include a toggle which disables all hooks into unassigned devices?  Thanks for the fantastic work! 

For me the latest update will have preclear saying it is done, but unraid never sees it being done (didn't try a restart). Going back and telling it to preclear the drive again, but with skip post read checked, unraid would be ok with it. Been meaning to come post about it here assuming there might be a bug.

Edited November 2, 20187 yr by Cull2ArcaHeresy
spelling error fix

I also wanted to chime in with my experiences preclearing two drives over the weekend. I tried preclearing them 4 times and Unraid still insisted on clearing them when I assigned them to the array. I first tried what @Cull2ArcaHeresy did with the last preclear by skipping post read, but that didn't work for me. I rebooted, and that did not work either. After a lot of trial and error I got Unraid to accept the drives only by disconnecting the drives, going through a power up and down cycle, reconnecting the drives, and starting it back up one last time. So, if anyone else is having trouble maybe this will help someone.

 

And @gfjardim, thank you a lot for this plugin.

I'm trying to preclear a 8TB N300 on 6.6.3 DTB edition, but it keeps pausing.  At first I could resume, but it's now stuck on 97% of stage 1 and won't go any further.

 

What do I do please?  Thanks

 

Edit: It's managed to move onto zeroing, so hopefully it will finish now

Edited November 17, 20187 yr by DZMM

Hi. I don't know if I am in the right place with this post. Please let me know if now.  My Preclear plugin was installed and used many times and now is not in the list of plugins . When I try  to reinstall it from community apps there are error messages in the download process.  below

 

 

plugin: installing: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gfjardim/unRAID-plugins/master/plugins/preclear.disk.plg
plugin: downloading https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gfjardim/unRAID-plugins/master/plugins/preclear.disk.plg
plugin: downloading: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gfjardim/unRAID-plugins/master/plugins/preclear.disk.plg ... done
plugin: downloading: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gfjardim/unRAID-plugins/master/archive/preclear.disk-2018.10.07.txz ... failed (Generic error)
plugin: wget: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gfjardim/unRAID-plugins/master/archive/preclear.disk-2018.10.07.txz download failure (Generic error)

Also I got this status alert that I don't know if it is related.  I don't know how to solve that either.

 

 

Event: USB flash drive failure
Subject: Alert [TOWER] - USB drive is not read-write
Description: Ultra (sda)
Importance: alert

 

Thanks!

Jon

15 minutes ago, jonF said:

Also I got this status alert that I don't know if it is related.  I don't know how to solve that either.

 

Post  up your Diagnostics file     Tools   >>>  Diagnostics

thanks Frank. attached. 

tower-diagnostics-20181117-1057.zip

49 minutes ago, jonF said:

Also I got this status alert that I don't know if it is related.  I don't know how to solve that either.

 

It is.

Nov 17 10:51:58 Tower kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is on

Some (rarely) flash drives have a switch / slide to basically make them read-only.  If yours has this, then it's in the wrong position.

 

If it doesn't, then shut down, and toss the drive into another system and run the file system checks on it.

 

 

I don't know how to run the file systems check. I'm not at all tech saavy . is that something you can guide me through? here is a google drive link to the what was on the flash drive   

bzfirmware

bzimage

bzmodules

changes.txt

FSCK0000.REC

FSCK0001.REC

FSCK0002.REC

FSCK0003.REC

FSCK0004.REC

license.txt

make_bootable.bat

make_bootable_linux

make_bootable_mac

memtest

readvz

Edited November 18, 20187 yr by jonF

1. Shutdown the server
2. Pop the flash into another computer
3. Assuming Windows, it will probably tell you that it needs to check it for consistency.*
4. Barring that, then This PC, Right Click on the Flash Drive, Properties, Tools, Check (Error Checking)

* if using a Mac, then go to a store and buy a real computer  

"we haven't found any errors on this drive. You can still scan the drive for errors if you want"

should I scan it?

It won't hurt

1 hour ago, Squid said:

* if using a Mac, then go to a store and buy a real computer  

HEY😒

I had a look at one of the files (FSCK0000.REC) that you uploaded and your boot drive has file corruption in the File table area.  The contents of that File were actually the content of      /config/ident.cfg    in standard boot file system.  This file was apparently generated by the Linux disk checking utility.  

 

I would suggest that you get screen printouts of EVERY setup and assignment page on the Unraid GUI if you don't have a backup of your flash drive.  In any case make absolutely sure that you get one of the Main tab of the GUI!!!! 

 

EDIT:  I would also like to suggest that you open up a new thread in the General Support  area of the Forum as solving this problem could get messy in this thread if anyone jumps in with Problem that is actually Preclear Plugin problem. 

Edited November 17, 20187 yr by Frank1940

Frank did you see the files though the google drive link or the attachments? when I was uploading the attachments there were some errors messages in the attachment process. I didn't know how to delete them. I should have mentioned that.   I think the google drive link is more reliable as to what is actually on that flash drive. 

3 minutes ago, jonF said:

Frank did you see the files though the google drive link or the attachments? when I was uploading the attachments there were some errors messages in the attachment process. I didn't know how to delete them. I should have mentioned that.   I think the google drive link is more reliable as to what is actually on that flash drive. 

I can only assume that you got those files off of the flash drive.  If they are there, they indicate a problem has occurred in the file system sometime in the past.  I looked again at the Google drive uploads and things look good there.   

 

You may be wondering why we are concerned about the health of your flash drive.  It be cause of that Error message about your Flash Drive not being Read/Write.  That fact will prevent you from updating or installing any Apps.   That is why I suggested that you open the new thread.  

 

MAC's do have a disk checking routine.  I don't know how to access it but someone here will if that is an issue. 

 

By the way, posting up those files on Google Drive can potentially reveal a lot of information that is stripped out in the requested Diagnostics file because of security concerns.  

Frank , thanks for all the help! And I will move this thread to the general support.

 

Edited November 18, 20187 yr by jonF
made a request that was no longer needed

 A few more questions. The other issue was solved. Thanks!

When doing preclear I chose preclear and erase.  

1) erase is taking a LONG time. 

Why would I want to erase?

Can I stop it in the middle of the erase and will the drive be ok to add to the array? 

Next time what preclear setting do you recommend? 

Is preclear by itself good enough?

Thanks!
Jon

1 minute ago, jonF said:

 A few more questions. The other issue was solved. Thanks!

When doing preclear I chose preclear and erase.  

1) erase is taking a LONG time. 

Why would I want to erase?

Can I stop it in the middle of the erase and will the drive be ok to add to the array? 

Next time what preclear setting do you recommend? 

Is preclear by itself good enough?

Thanks!
Jon

I haven't been following your posts in this thread, and I haven't used this preclear plugin in a while, but I think erase is intended to randomize the disk to make it harder for anyone to recover any of your data from it so you can sell or otherwise pass it on to others or dispose of it.

 

But, for a disk to be considered clear by Unraid, it must have zeros written to all of it (cleared), then the "clear signature" written to it so Unraid will recognize it as a disk that has already been cleared. If you add a disk to a new slot in the array and Unraid doesn't recognize it as clear, then it will clear it before adding it.

 

Note that only disks added to a new slot must be clear. This is so parity will remain valid. If you are going to use the disk to replace another disk in the array then it doesn't have to be clear since it is going to be overwritten by the rebuild anyway.

13 minutes ago, jonF said:

Why would I want to erase?

Erase is used to securely delete (overwrite) any info on the disk. Prior to disposable for example.

Thanks. Can I stop the erase midstream? and would that be ok to add to the array? Also as it is preclearing the word that I see is preread. Is that the same thing?

2 minutes ago, jonF said:

Thanks. Can I stop the erase midstream? and would that be ok to add to the array? Also as it is preclearing the word that I see is preread. Is that the same thing?

Pre-read only reads the whole disk as a test to make sure it can all be read. If that is the stage it is at then it hasn't even begun to erase. Then it will have to clear (write zeros) then post-read to verify. So it has a very long way to go.

 

You can stop the erase (hasn't really started yet), but of course the disk won't be clear yet.

 

Are you doing preclear to test the disk? That is really the main purpose of preclear these days since Unraid will clear it anyway when it needs a clear disk.

New Topic

I'm preclearing an 8tb drive

Its zeroing at between 10 and 12  mb/s is that normal? 

25 minutes ago, jonF said:

New Topic

I'm preclearing an 8tb drive

Its zeroing at between 10 and 12  mb/s is that normal? 

Where are you seeing the speed you are reporting? (Also, there is a difference between MB/s and Mb/s, and no such thing as mb/s)

 

You would have to post a diagnostic for us to have any idea what the problem might be.