hey guys.. just need to check something.. last night i was pulling files off the server, after awhile it was taking way to long.. so i loged in and saw the disk was disabled(red).. with a thousand something errors... so i'm assuming it was slow cause it was using the parity to create the files as i was copying them.

 

anyway... checked the system log in unmenu. and i coudln't see any red in the system log to say there was an error.. but there was alot of spindowns on the disk..

 

tried a short smart test in there, and it said it was doing an offline test? after a few minuites checked the results and it said it passed.

 

so rebooted.. still red

 

shut down, checked the cable, rebooted still red

 

shut down swaped the cable and was going to try running the hutil samsung diag off ubcd on a usb... no cd rom in it.. tried several times, but it kept failing to load up the dos side of things... was like 2am this morning so i gave up and went to bed... am now trying to load up hirens one onto a usb now

 

have booted the server in the mean time, and it's now showing the disk as new replaced.. wt? it's the same disk. anyway will try to run the diag tools again in a min to see if it finds an error.

 

if i can't and i attempt a rebuild and the disk failed in the process. i'm still going to be fine replacing the disk and rebuilding again?

 

edit; ok, that was highly unsuccessfull.. got booted into hutil but as soon as told it to run self diag, it just shat itself and droped back into dos prompt.. reloaded and did a self diag on a good disk and did the same thing again.. wonder if it's conflicting with something like the sata card... ah well... just thought off, pulling the disk out now and put it into this computer to run a diag.. see what happens

ok run hutil and everything passed... didn't do a full surface scan,

 

so what now, put it back in and let it rebuild? not that i've done anything to alter the disk contents to require a rebuild?

ok run hutil and everything passed... didn't do a full surface scan,

 

so what now, put it back in and let it rebuild? not that i've done anything to alter the disk contents to require a rebuild?

You've done several things to make it more difficult to determine what happened, but first...

 

For a drive to be "red" it indicates a "write" to it failed.  It will NOT be returned to service on its own, even it you correct a loose cable/etc.

 

So, all your attempts at rebooting, again and again, did nothing to get it back in service.

 

To get it back into service, the unRAID array must think it is a different disk, so it can re-construct the old contents onto the replacement disk.

 

You can have the array forget the old model/serial number of the "failed" disk by

Stopping the array

Un-assigning the drive

Starting the array (by pressing "Start") with it un-assigned.  (this causes it to forget the old model/serial number of the failed disk)

Stopping the array

Re-assigning the disk.  (It will not think it is a replacement for the failed disk)

Start the array once more (by pressing "Start")

 

It will then begin a full re-construction of the failed drive.  Remember, it was taken out of service because a "write" to it failed.  By re-constructing it from parity and the other disks it will have the full contents, including the data that could not be written.

 

Joe L.

To get it back into service, the unRAID array must think it is a different disk, so it can re-construct the old contents onto the replacement disk.

 

yep, thats where i'm currently at, it's blue and thinks it's a new disk and wants to reconstruct the data onto it... so it's fine for me to hit start at this time and let it start rebuilding?

 

if the disk was to fail during this rebuild, can i still replace it with a new disk and start a rebuild again without loosing any data?

 

 

To get it back into service, the unRAID array must think it is a different disk, so it can re-construct the old contents onto the replacement disk.

 

yep, thats where i'm currently at, it's blue and thinks it's a new disk and wants to reconstruct the data onto it... so it's fine for me to hit start at this time and let it start rebuilding?

Yes

 

if the disk was to fail during this rebuild, can i still replace it with a new disk and start a rebuild again without loosing any data?

Yes

 

Just do NOT press any button labeled as "Restore" (if it exists on your version of unRAID) as it immediately invalidates parity and sets a new disk configuration.  It is NOT what you want to to if you want to re-construct a failed disk, in fact it would prevent it.

just to update, all is well again.. well the rebuild just finished, no errors. so who knows what happened, some gremlin

Recommend you run a smartest on the disk just to be sure. Sounds like a loose connection that you found and fixed.

Sounds like a bad connection which took the drive complely off-line and one of the reboots cleared that drive from the system (since it did not appear to be there). Then, when it connected and appeared as a valid disk again unRAID took it to be the replacement. Not a gremlin, just a cable problem that your removing and replugging fixed.

 

FYI, a reboot will not fix a red-ball. Your rebooting would never have fixed it. One of the shut-downs and cable checks probably fixed the problem causing the red-ball.

 

Peter

 

One of the shut-downs and cable checks probably fixed the problem causing the red-ball.

 

Peter

 

 

yea must of been when i restarted with the drive cable disconnected... did that to see it come up not assigned, so i was sure i was dealing with the correct physical drive. which must be when it took it out, and then replacing the cable, as was said, saw it come back as a new drive, and it accepted it back into the fold