June 23, 20179 yr I have 7 drives in an array that has been running for a year. I want to add drive 8. I precleared the new drive to add to the array. On the main screen I can assign the drive (as sdh). With the array started Unraid shows the drive as unmountable (at the top in the list of drives). At the bottom of the main screen under "Array Operation" it lists the drive under "Unmountable disk present". The "Format" button is dithered out and unoperable. Under the text to the right of the "Format" button it says "Yes I want to do this" but there is no checkbox visible. How do I format the disk now that preclear is complete? Where are simple, direct instructions on adding new disks on Lime? Is the proper sequence: shutdown, insert new drive, boot, find disk on "Main" and select preclear, assign new disk, and then format? Thanks in advance for any help.
June 23, 20179 yr Author Brilliant! You're the maaaaan. Problem solved. Drive is formatting. Thank you.
February 1, 20242 yr Waring for others Just went thru a 52 hour pre-clear on a 14TB drive I stopped my array added the pre-cleared drive to the array started the array backup I went to shared to add this new drive as part of a share. I go back to main and I see the new drive is unmountable, unformated. I stop the array, deselect the drive from the array and go to try and format but their is no format button, I keep looking for the format button, I see their is a check box next to the start array button (i think called) "deselect drive from array", I click the start array with check box checked this and the drive goes to unmounted devices I then format it, stop array add drive start array and the array now the system wants to do a 15 hour rebuild, argh!!. Must have been me trying to add this new drive to shares, I'm assuming, that triggered the need for rebuild. So now after a pre-clear of 52 hours I need to have a data-rebuild of 15 hours. argh again!! Your Pre-Cleared drives need to be Formatted, before use, Tales from the Dark Side Tim N
February 1, 20242 yr Community Expert 12 minutes ago, Aidan13 said: Your Pre-Cleared drives need to be Formatted, before use, After you add it to the array. If you format it before you add it to the array, it isn't clear anymore and Unraid has to clear it. Never seen a checkbox that says anything about "deselecting". No idea what you were seeing since don't know what version Unraid you have. You posted to a very very old thread.
February 1, 20242 yr I formatted the drives before pre-clear, this drive was a used drive from a qnap so I formatted before clearing. My unraid version is within my signature v6.12.6, My drive is rebuilding now, when this is complete I will go back and see if I can duplicate this message & check box, and let you know. I posted to an old thread because I googled unraid preclear wont mount or something close and this thread came up, and I answered to it because I thought this might be good info for someone else to have.
February 1, 20242 yr Community Expert 5 hours ago, Aidan13 said: I formatted the drives before pre-clear There's no point in doing that, since it will be cleared, if it's a new disk you need to format it after adding it to the array, with the disk assigned to the array, not unassigned.
February 1, 20242 yr Community Expert 5 hours ago, Aidan13 said: I will go back and see if I can duplicate this message & check box, and let you know. No need to replicate anything, it's all working as intended. Preclear Add, it'll be unmountable Format All in the doc. https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/storage-management/#data-disks 8 hours ago, Aidan13 said: Your Pre-Cleared drives need to be Formatted, before use, No, precisely not, that'd make your preclear operation useless. 8 hours ago, Aidan13 said: Must have been me trying to add this new drive to shares, I'm assuming, that triggered the need for rebuild. No, it's that you removed the drive from the array after adding it. Edited February 1, 20242 yr by Kilrah
February 3, 20242 yr On 1/31/2024 at 4:46 PM, Aidan13 said: Your Pre-Cleared drives need to be Formatted, before use, Not sure why my per-cleared disk showed it was "unformatted and unmountable" in my disk array, this is when I disabled the drive and got to the screen (image below). This is where I went down the rabbit hole. On 1/31/2024 at 4:46 PM, Aidan13 said: I see their is a check box next to the start array button (i think called) "deselect drive from array" Actual text was "Start will disable the missing disk and then bring the array on-line. Install a replacement disk as soon as possible." Thanks everyone for your input. Tim N Edited February 3, 20242 yr by Aidan13
February 3, 20242 yr Community Expert 1 hour ago, Aidan13 said: Not sure why my per-cleared disk showed it was "unformatted and unmountable" in my disk array Because that's how it's supposed to be since it's cleared, you then just need to format it within the array. Edited February 3, 20242 yr by Kilrah
February 4, 20242 yr 7 hours ago, Kilrah said: Because that's how it's supposed to be since it's cleared, you then just need to format it within the array. Sorry for the slow learning process, but this is from the unraid manual in the clear vs pre-clear chapter. "It is also important to note that after completing a 'Preclear' you must not carry out any operation that will write to the drive (e.g. format it) as this will destroy the 'Clear' state." This is why I am confused. Manual states Not to format a cleared drive. Thanks Tim N
February 4, 20242 yr Community Expert 3 hours ago, Aidan13 said: Sorry for the slow learning process, but this is from the unraid manual in the clear vs pre-clear chapter. "It is also important to note that after completing a 'Preclear' you must not carry out any operation that will write to the drive (e.g. format it) as this will destroy the 'Clear' state." This is why I am confused. Manual states Not to format a cleared drive. Thanks Tim N This is saying do not format it from with UD BEFORE adding it to the array as if you try to add it as a new drive to the array and the drive being added does not have the 'clear' signature then Unraid will promptly try to start clearing it again to avoid invalidating parity. It is a very common mistake to format the drive from within UD after preclearing and before adding it to the array. It will always need formatting AFTER adding it to the array as a new drive.
February 4, 20242 yr I'm still new to unraid, still learning. I'm assuming UD means Unassigned Devices. So, add device to array and once in the array format it from there, got it. Tim N
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