March 9, 201115 yr Basically, if you see such an option as Joe L mentioned (as it is known as different names), if you see it enabled in your BIOS for your Gigabyte mobo, just disable it. Having said this, a firmware/BIOS update may have rectified this issue. One of my Gigabyte mobo's originally had this feature ENABLED, but the BIOS update has since DISABLED it as a default function, so if your CMOS battery died, you're still safe, unless you manually go and enable it! As a safety precaution, I originally bought a Gigabyte mobo for my first unRAID server, and in fear, replaced it with a ASUS board. The original board I've now used it for a Windows desktop, and had then I later updated the BIOS, disabling this feature. With installing a disk into unRAID, the simple process is unRAID detects the new drive, though you have to add it as part of the array, unRAID will automatically format and prepare the disk. Please read the link below to answer most of your uncertainties regarding unRAID: http://www.lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Manual Better still, use a virtualised version of unRAID which I whipped up, perfect for newbies or for testing: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6260.0 Hope the above helps Cheers. Now I'm worried about the spare gigabyte board I have, I really don't want to ever loose this data, Over time I'm thinking I'll maybe build another file server to sync the two just incase. Also with unraid do I need to format the drive or can unraid do that for me? Also if I'm using WD Greens is it a good idea to turn off WD IDLE on every drive? I plan on installing a hotswap bay in my main pc to be able to do this if needed (I just need to install the hot swap, it's in the jungle of boxes in my living room full of pc stuff lol I'll post pictures later) So yea if unraid can't format them I'll just hot swap all the drives. When you hot swap a drive you don't need to reboot do you? My current windows takes about 10-15 minutes to get past the windows XP loading screen, I believe I might need a format or my ram is going but I've just left my pc on the last month or so to not have to deal with the hanging boot.
August 2, 201114 yr Hope I am not invoking a too old thread. This is obviously related to this irritating HPA thing. I had this old Gigabyte 945GCMX-S2 board which I used for assembling my NAS. I connected one 1TB and one 2TB disk .... and did a preclear. My one TB disk was labesled HPA, to which I searched that I have to get rid of it and run preclear again. (which landed me to couple of threads but none actually addresses the issue completely) To my bad luck I do not have any option to disable it in my BIOS. As suggested by Joe I tried to look for "'Save a copy of BIOS to HDD' and 'Backup BIOS Image to HDD" but there is nothing even remotely near to it. Now I seriously do nto want to go for a new board unless there is absolute no solution. What are my options here. I have two more drives (one 1TB and another 2TB) pending to be attached to the NAS. But I'd rather have this resolved completely before my plug in rest of my drives ...... Thanks in advance ..... regards Sammy
August 2, 201114 yr Hope I am not invoking a too old thread. This is obviously related to this irritating HPA thing. I had this old Gigabyte 945GCMX-S2 board which I used for assembling my NAS. I connected one 1TB and one 2TB disk .... and did a preclear. My one TB disk was labesled HPA, to which I searched that I have to get rid of it and run preclear again. (which landed me to couple of threads but none actually addresses the issue completely) To my bad luck I do not have any option to disable it in my BIOS. As suggested by Joe I tried to look for "'Save a copy of BIOS to HDD' and 'Backup BIOS Image to HDD" but there is nothing even remotely near to it. Now I seriously do nto want to go for a new board unless there is absolute no solution. What are my options here. I have two more drives (one 1TB and another 2TB) pending to be attached to the NAS. But I'd rather have this resolved completely before my plug in rest of my drives ...... Thanks in advance ..... regards Sammy Your options are: 1. figure out how to turn it off 2. update the BIOS and see if you can disable it 3. chuck the board and buy a new one.
August 2, 201114 yr ^^ Not much of "satisfying" options, if I may put it that way. Anyway ... 1. Nope went through in and out of the settings. 2. Yes updated bios to F6i per the website. Nothing much changed..... still no option 3. I think I wont give up so soon. Let me see what others have to say here ......
August 2, 201114 yr 3. I think I wont give up so soon. Let me see what others have to say here ...... If you have no control over HPA being on or off in your BIOS then you are SOL. Even if you remove it from all drives it WILL be added to a drive sooner or later and it WILL cause problems. I have a Gigabyte board, but the HPA feature is off by default. If it were on and I could not turn it off the only recourse I would have is to get a different board.
August 2, 201114 yr Ok Got an update. To flash a new bios, the GUI has this q-Flash utility in bios. If I press F8 it takes me to the flashing utility, from where I flashed the new bios. it shows 3 options. Keep DMI Data : Enabled Update Bios from Drive Save BIOS to drive. This third option, (save bios to drive) seems very similar to what joe suggested ('Backup BIOS Image to HDD). could this be the one. How ever the issue is if I disable the "Keep DMI data" and do a reboot, it is enabled again. I tried couple of times but it always defaults to Enabled. No idea if this issomething related to HPA. Below is the snap of how it looks .. Regards Sammy
August 2, 201114 yr Another update ... I am getting a old MSI P43 NEO mobo for a give away price which I can use with my c2d. Is this board good enough for NAS and unRAID ... Suggestions ...
August 3, 201114 yr Your options are: 1. figure out how to turn it off 2. update the BIOS and see if you can disable it There is still a significant danger with these two options ... if the HPA feature is not disabled by default, the day your cmos battery goes flat, suffers a poor connection, or maybe if you reflash the bios, your bios will reset to default configuration (with hpa enabled), and start scribbling on your disks. 3. chuck the board and buy a new one. ... new, non Gigabyte, board!
August 3, 201114 yr If anyone can comment on MSI P43 NEO, that would be greatfull .... thanks Should work just fine. I run a Gigabyte p43 board in my system and it has been doing great.
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