June 1, 200719 yr @Rene, XP sees it as FAT32, named "UNRAID". Linux (unRAID) does, too. Right now the only problem left seems to be that unRAID 4.0 doesn't automatically mount the stick for reasons unknown to me. FWIW, I've now also partitioned and formatted the 3 factory new harddisks the same way I did with the USB stick inside of unRAID with fdisk + mkdosfs. And unRAID 4.0 does mount these 3 harddisks automatically! And "ls -l /dev/disk/by-label" shows the harddisks, too. Linux/unRAID just doesn't mount my USB stick automatically, although it was partitioned and formatted exactly the same way as the harddisks. Again, unRAID 3.0 has no problems and automatically mounts my USB stick and detects it. 3.0 (I think) did not look for the USB label. I too had many problems with my sandisk 1Gig USB drive. I had to set its geometry before my bios would boot at all on it. An ls of my disk/by-label only shows one entry, the one for UNRAID... interesting that yours shows other disks... I guess you assigned them labels? in any case, here are my threads... including how I finally configured my flash drive... it is set as a FS type "e" using the advanced more of fdisk in linux. (same FS type that the HP formatting tool uses) http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=359.0 and http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=366.0
June 1, 200719 yr @Rene, tried another USB stick. It's a very old one, still USB 1. And this one works just fine, albeit very slowly, of course. With the very same settings and steps the new Verbatim USB sticks don't work. They boot fine, but they're just not automatically mounted by unRAID 4.0. @Joe, I intentionally gave the harddisks labels and even formatted them in FAT32, so that everything is 100% identical to the USB stick. That's probably why "disk/by-label" listed these drives. Anyway. I've checked out your two threads and with great expectation I changed the sectors/heads of my USB stick to 63 sectors and 16 heads, but unfortunately it didn't help. Booting still works, but the USB stick is still not recognized by unRAID. One interesting thing happened with the changed sectors/heads: Now my USB stick is terribly slow! Before the change, the sysboot process went through in about 5 seconds. Now it needs a minute or something like that. Strange thing...
June 1, 200719 yr @Rene, tried another USB stick. It's a very old one, still USB 1. And this one works just fine, albeit very slowly, of course. With the very same settings and steps the new Verbatim USB sticks don't work. They boot fine, but they're just not automatically mounted by unRAID 4.0. @Joe, I intentionally gave the harddisks labels and even formatted them in FAT32, so that everything is 100% identical to the USB stick. That's probably why "disk/by-label" listed these drives. Anyway. I've checked out your two threads and with great expectation I changed the sectors/heads of my USB stick to 63 sectors and 16 heads, but unfortunately it didn't help. Booting still works, but the USB stick is still not recognized by unRAID. One interesting thing happened with the changed sectors/heads: Now my USB stick is terribly slow! Before the change, the sysboot process went through in about 5 seconds. Now it needs a minute or something like that. Strange thing... I am impressed... did not realize unRaid could deal with FAT32 data disks... (normally it uses reiserfs formatted disks) Hey... all I can say is I tried to help where I could. Your bootup time of 5 seconds is much faster than mine. Mine is 15 - 20 seconds at least... Guess there are huge differences in flash drive speed, even with usb 2.0 You can probably use the HP tool to put your CHS setting back the way they were... probably get the speed back too. Personally, unless you are very stubborn, I'd go get another usb 2.0 drive before you purchase any license key for it. Or... leave the old drive in place, we don't boot very often anyway. Glad you are up and running. might want to post the specific brand and model of the USB drive that did not work... save somebody from pulling out their hair. Joe L.
June 1, 200719 yr Next interesting thing: Directly after booting, I try to mount the flash drive by doing "mkdir /mnt/flash" and then "mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/flash". This is what I'm getting: mount: special device /dev/sad1 does not exist But if I enter "fdisk /dev/sda" and do nothing but quit fdisk again, afterwards the same mount command from above works! I guess it's the same problem during the boot phase: Probably unRAID/Linux tries to mount sda1, but fails. Now the big question: Why does mounting of the partition fail? And why does it suddenly succeed after I entered fdisk (without doing anything)? @Joe, no hard feelings... I'll find a way to get that stick back up to speed. Those 5 seconds are just when the dots appear during bootup. The whole boot process is longer, of course. I'm not really up and running, though, since I don't want to use that old stick. God knows how long that will still work! I bought those Verbatim sticks cause they are really fast. Anyway. The exact model is "Verbatim Store'n' Go Professional". Very good stick - except it doesn't seem to work with unRAID 4.0. I guess I'll have to try a different brand. <sigh> I had hoped to setup my monster unRAID server today... :'(
June 1, 200719 yr equipped with U3 software :-), but I assume it is removed by using the U3 removal tool.
June 1, 200719 yr No no, that's the "Store'n' Go U3". The "Store'n' Go Professional" doesn't come with U3, I believe. At least the U3 removal tool didn't find U3 on this stick.
June 1, 200719 yr madshi - I read through the thread and I'm not sure what state you're at now. To set a baseline, please plug your Flash into a PC and take these steps: 1. Format using Windows - right click the drive letter and select 'Format'. Format as FAT32, Quick format is fine. Specify 'UNRAID' as the volume label. 2. Run 'syslinux' specifying the Windows drive letter. 3. Copy the 4.0 release files to the Flash. 4. Right-click the drive and select 'Eject'. 5. Remove all hard drives from your server (just disconnect their power). 6. Plug Flash into your server & boot. Now if I'm following everything correctly, it will not mount the Flash for some reason, and hence can't find the config files. If this is the case, do this: 1. From console (keyboard), type: cat /proc/partitions You should see an entry there for your Flash which something like this: 8 0 500736 sda 8 1 500592 sda1 (It might not be 'sda', whatever it is use that below.) Now type: mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /boot This should mount the Flash on the /boot directory. Now type: cp /var/log/syslog /boot/syslog.txt This will copy the system log into the root folder of the Flash. Finally, plug Flash back into PC and post the system log.
June 1, 200719 yr Thanks for reading through the mess. It was a journey for me, so probably hard to read for you! Anyway, I did exactly what you told me. The output of "cat /proc/partitions" is empty!!! However, after I run "fdisk /dev/sda" and quit fdisk again without changing anything, "cat /proc/partitions" shows "sda" and "sda1". Tried to post the syslog, but it was slightly too long - the forum software complained. So I've uploaded it here: http://madshi.net/syslog.txt
June 1, 200719 yr This system log is incomplete. The the very end of your syslog reads: Jun 1 20:03:39 Tower kernel: [ 49.174801] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access VBTM Store 'n' Go Pro 5.02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS Jun 1 20:03:39 Tower kernel: [ 49.175818] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sda Jun 1 20:03:39 Tower kernel: [ 49.180659] usb-storage: device scan complete Jun 1 20:03:42 Tower login[824]: ROOT LOGIN on `tty1' Jun 1 20:03:57 Tower kernel: [ 78.445960] SCSI device sda: 1019391 512-byte hdwr sectors (522 MB) Jun 1 20:03:57 Tower kernel: [ 78.446573] sda: Write Protect is off Jun 1 20:03:57 Tower kernel: [ 78.446577] sda: Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08 Jun 1 20:03:57 Tower kernel: [ 78.446580] sda: assuming drive cache: write through Jun 1 20:03:57 Tower kernel: [ 78.447822] SCSI device sda: 1019391 512-byte hdwr sectors (522 MB) Jun 1 20:03:57 Tower kernel: [ 78.448448] sda: Write Protect is off Jun 1 20:03:57 Tower kernel: [ 78.448451] sda: Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08 Jun 1 20:03:57 Tower kernel: [ 78.448453] sda: assuming drive cache: write through Jun 1 20:03:57 Tower kernel: [ 78.448457] sda: sda1 The ROOT LOGIN line is you logging into the console. Was the line immediately preceeding it also the last line being output on the screen? The symptoms here don't make sense. Should not have to run 'fdisk' on the Flash. It could be that this particular model Flash is doing something unusual/unexpected. Might be better to just go out and buy a $20 Lexar or Sandisk.
June 1, 200719 yr Not sure why the log is incomplete. I haven't edited it or anything like that. The screen output is quite different to the syslog. There are complaints that "UNRAID" could not be found and that some config files could not be found etc. I don't find these complaints in the syslog. Should they be there? Anyway, what is confusing me is that the stick works perfectly fine with unRAID 3.0. Whatever, I guess I'll just buy a Sandisk.
June 1, 200719 yr @Rene, the generic U3 removal tool from the U3.com site didn't find U3 on this stick.
June 1, 200719 yr Not sure why the log is incomplete. I haven't edited it or anything like that. The screen output is quite different to the syslog. There are complaints that "UNRAID" could not be found and that some config files could not be found etc. I don't find these complaints in the syslog. Should they be there? Anyway, what is confusing me is that the stick works perfectly fine with unRAID 3.0. Whatever, I guess I'll just buy a Sandisk. I understand the frustration... What's strange about this problem is that the Flash partitions are not recognized after being formatted via Windows, but are recognized after running 'fdisk/mkdosfs' via linux... I've never seen this before. One more thing to try: Earlier you mentioned that you had an old Flash that worked. Boot 4.0 off this Flash. Then put your Verbatim Flash back into the PC and format under windows as described earlier (but set a volume label other than UNRAID, e.g, TEST). When done, plug the flash into the running 4.0 system. It should show up as 'sdb'. Let's see if we can get this far.
June 2, 200719 yr Frustration is not *that* big. I've already ordered two Sandisk Cruzer Micros. It's just that I like these Verbatim sticks. They look nice, don't scratch and are very fast. Anyway, the Sandisks will probably be nice, too. I've done the other test you suggested and the Verbatim does show up as sdb and sdb1 without me having to go into fdisk. So it seems that auto mounting works if it's not the boot device. Strange, isn't it?
June 5, 200719 yr Just wanted to let you guys know that with the Sandisk Micro Cruzer my server works just fine. So I ordered the unRAID Pro version now. Thanks for all your help! Maybe it would make sense to warn about Verbatim Store'n' Go Professional sticks in the documentation?
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.