So I rebooted to see if any new errors would arise.  The first time I rebooted disk15 was missing.  Then I rebooted again and it said it was a new drive (blue dot).  So Im lost.  My PSU is a Corsair CMPSU-650TX.  I still run 16 drives.  On board video card.  So nothing that should really be taxing the PSU except for the drives.

 

Assuming you did not change any cabling, disk15 is ata14 one of disks getting frequent link reset during data rebuild, have you replaced the SATA cable as well as power cable yet to both ata13/ata14 yet?

 

and i am not sure what do you meant this disk is a new disk? this disk should be registered in unRAID already, for better or worse, unRAID should

mark this disk either good (green) or bad (red) but never new (blue) unless unRAID doesn't remember this disk is part of RAID.

I have replaced sata cables.  I cannot replace the PSU cable because it isn't modular.  I am RMAing hte PSU just to be safe.  Too many weird issues lately, so I may as well try to replace as many things that I may think are the culprit.

 

I don't know why or how unRAID sees it as a new drive.  It asks me if I want to expand the filesystem and shows the drive with the blue dot.  I'll see what happens after the new PSU is in.  First I will try to rebuild it and "expand" the filesystem.  If there are still issues I will RAM the drive I guess.

I don't know why or how unRAID sees it as a new drive.  It asks me if I want to expand the filesystem and shows the drive with the blue dot.  I'll see what happens after the new PSU is in.  First I will try to rebuild it and "expand" the filesystem.  If there are still issues I will RAM the drive I guess.

 

 

This is rather an interesting yet bizarrd situation, given that you are using new Gigabyte MB, is it possible this is HPA issue?

Your last posted syslog shown disk15 has the correct size 1465138552, i am not sure why unRAID all of sudden determine this disk become "bigger"?

I mean it could be the HPA issue.  I will ave to look up the issue and what to check in the BIOS again for that.  But I would assume it would effect more than the 1 drive.  That drive has had more problems than the others with shutting off and other things.  The last MB (although that I think was damaged) wouldn't even boot with the drive's SMART on.  I had to turn off SMART in the bios for it to pass it.  But yes, the whole situation is very odd to me as well.

So I received the new PSU.  Everything looks good but that disk15.  In fact, the system won't even boot when it is plugged in.  It keeps trying hard resets but never finishes.  Once unplugged the system boots up with no problem indicating that it is only missing that one drive.  I ordered a new drive to replace that one.  Once I rebuild I hope my issues are solved.  My only concern is that I had a lot of parity errors the last time I was actually able to rebuild the last dead drive (the initial post in the thread).

 

Once again thanks for the help everyone.  I know I have posted a lot but maybe all the details in the future might help someone.  It is also a log so I can keep track of is going on as well.

Alright, now I am really a bit confused.  In the beginning I replaced a dead drive with a 2tb WD EARS drive.  I didnt think anything different of the drive since the sticker on it mentioned to use jumpers if you have WnXP.  "All other OS' the drive is already configured."  So after browsing the forums tonight I see tons of issues with the jumpers etc.  So the drive is in there with no jumpers.  I think it is working ok.  The drive I ordered tonight was another 2tb EARS.  Neither of these will be my parity drive.  Do I add jumpers to this one or the existing one or both?  Are the jumpers just for read/write improvements?  I read someone that one guy had 2 drives, one with and one without jumpers and his array wouldn't start.  After reading I am completely lost.  I will read some more in the next day or two but any advice would be helpful.

 

Right now my guess is to:

1)  Leave the drive that is in the machine with the jumper off.

2)  Put the jumper on the new drive I will be inserting into the array and see if it boots up.

3)  Let the array rebuild onto the new drive with the jumper.

4)  Put a new jumper on he existing drive and erase it and let it rebuild.

If the drives say "Advanced Format Technology" or something to that effect on the label, you need the jumper.  Not using them could cause a performance penalty and more importantly, risk data corruption / loss.

 

Adding the jumper to a existing drive will make it appear as unformatted to UNRaid due to the sector realignment.  So by simply adding the jumper to the existing drive, Unraid will have to rebuild the data.  I would get things straightened out with the existing drive before adding the new one.  I'd also run the preclear script on the new one, and ideally on the existing one as well.  

 

So one way you could proceed would be to:

 

1) install the new drive with the jumper but don't add it to the array.  Run the preclear script on it to prep it for quick addition as well as test it for any problems.

2) Optionally while that is running you could move the data off the existing drive to the rest of the array if you had room (just a failsafe in case anything goes wrong)

2a) Run a parity check on your existing config to ensure all is well

3) once preclear is complete, replace the existing non jumpered EARS drive with the new jumpered / precleared one and let UNRaid rebuild it.

4)  Once the rebuild is complete, add the jumper to the 1st EARS drive and run the preclear script on it

4a) Run a parity check to ensure all is well

5) After preclear is done, add the drive into the array as a new drive

 

This method will take some time (several days) but gives you the peace of mind that your drives have been tested before entrusting them with your data.

 

 

 

I wouldn't think this would work because on your step 3 there cannot be a rebuild due to the array missing 2 drives.  Currently I have one non-jumpered EARS in there.  But I also have a dead Seagate 1.5tb.  To replace that dead drive I ordered another EARS.

 

Also, with a drive missing I can't do parity checks.

 

I think your solution would work if I just had the EARS drives and no dead ones.

Sorry, missed the part about the additional failed drive.  Then I would install the new drive with the jumper, preclear it, then use it to replace the failed seagate.  Once the rebuild is complete you could potentially add the jumper on the existing drive and then let that one rebuild.  Unfortunately this method doesn't give you the option to run a full preclear on the existing drive.

So an update:

The drive rebuild seemed to complete fine.  It did have over 400,000 parity sync errors.  No errors in the syslog.  I am currently running a parity check.  Assuming it comes up with no errors I will put the jumper on the EARS drive that does not have it.  Then rebuild that.

 

Current parity check:

1,953,514,552  KB

Current position: 462,728,356 (23.6%)

Estimated speed: 14,542 KB/sec

Estimated finish: 1708.2 minutes

Sync errors: 0

So that finished without any parity errors.  So I shut the system down and put the jumper on the existing EARS drive that was already in the system.  Them the system would go into an error loop and would not boot (it actually will boot if you leave it long enough).  When you do wait long enough and it does boot the OS does not see the drive so you cannot run preclear.sh on it.  So I read the 12 pages in the main EARS thread and saw others were having the same issue.  I grabbed the disk utility from WD's site and ran the low level format for the full 18 hours.  Then this morning I popped the drive and it saw the original drive was missing and that a new one was available on the devices tab.  So currently I am rebuild the missing drive.  I am hoping this is the last step.

 

Edit:  My rebuild time was VERY slow.  Then at about 50% complete the drive started constantly clicking.  RMA'd it.  Should have a new one today to start the process again with the jumper on from the start this time.

 

Edit:  New drive with the jumper fmo the beginning seems much faster:

 

Total size:   1,953,514,552   KB

Current position: 4,993,168 (0.2%)

Estimated speed: 13,253 KB/sec

Estimated finish: 2449.7 minutes

 

This was compared to about 3,500KB/sec on the low level formatted one.

 

 

Update:  Well everything finally finished.  No parity errors.  No issues.  Case closed.  THANKS EVERYONE FOR THE ASSISTANCE ON THIS LONG JOURNEY!!!