Pre-aligned advanced format drive is giving errors w/jumper on boot.

[ix400]

In a couple of weeks I will have finished building my unRAID server. Initially it will have 4 x 2TB.

 

When the server is running fine, I will copy all my data to it, which currently is stored on a Synology DS410. After finishing that, I would like to add the 'old' DS410 drives (4 x WD20EARS without jumper) to my unRAID serve to have all in all 8 x 2TB.

 

How do I prepare the 'old' WD20EARS for that purpose? When I purchased those drives, I put them directly into the DS410 without any additional preparations. So far, they work fine without any errors.

 

Maybe it's easier to just sell them with the DS410?

 

Chris

 

... can anyone help me on this? I really don't know how to handle this. It's all rather confusing.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

 

[fishface]

Your in the same boat as me, it's going to be case of trying a few things out and see how you get on, or as you say, maybe easier just to sell the DS410 with the disks, just make sure you back everything up before testing!

 

 

 

[ix400]

... and the winner is ...

 

...eBay

 

 

Chris

[fishface]

Ok, this is what has happened so far.

 

My WD's were formatted and partitioned in XP without the jumper first.

 

I now carrying out the following.

 

1) I deleted the partition in XP - without jumper

2) Installed into unRAID server with jumper, ran preclear unsuccessfully, got a load of errors at boot as well, similar to this http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=8333.msg80591#msg80591

3) Tried it again unRAID server without jumper, ran preclear, it boots very quick and clean, preclear is running, 'cycle 1 of 1' is 24% complete, 78.2 MB/s, disk temp 43C

 

It a 1.5TB disk so it will take awhile, but so far so good, but this seems to 'fly-in-the-face' with current thinking, removing the jumper Plenty of time for it to go wrong yet though...

 

Update, completed Step 10 of 10 without errors, now doing 'Post-Read...' which is at 8% - 84.5 MB/s - elapsed time 13:57:01 temp 44C

[Rajahal]

Honestly, I would just RMA the drive.  Even if it passes preclear without the jumper, I wouldn't trust it.  At best you'll see degraded performance, at worst you'll see data corruption.  I don't think the risk is worth it.

 

Any EARS drive that has been used at all without a jumper I would just RMA.  Better safe than sorry.

[fishface]

Yep, I guess I should RMA, I've already checked into that, I have quite a while left before my RMA time expires so it's no biggy, just curiosity now...and of course wanting to get to the bottom of it, but sometimes you just have to let go!

[kaiguy]

Honestly, I would just RMA the drive.  Even if it passes preclear without the jumper, I wouldn't trust it.  At best you'll see degraded performance, at worst you'll see data corruption.  I don't think the risk is worth it.

 

Any EARS drive that has been used at all without a jumper I would just RMA.  Better safe than sorry.

Really?  So once a drive has been used without a jumper (at all), you're suggesting to RMA the drive if it is to be used in unRAID?  Hard drives have changed so much in the years.  In the past, a new partition and format could fix just about anything.

[Joe L.]

Honestly, I would just RMA the drive.  Even if it passes preclear without the jumper, I wouldn't trust it.  At best you'll see degraded performance, at worst you'll see data corruption.  I don't think the risk is worth it.

 

Any EARS drive that has been used at all without a jumper I would just RMA.  Better safe than sorry.

Really?  So once a drive has been used without a jumper (at all), you're suggesting to RMA the drive if it is to be used in unRAID?  Hard drives have changed so much in the years.  In the past, a new partition and format could fix just about anything.

It is because the sector with the MBR is being replaced with something with contents the OS and BIOS are unable to deal with.  It appears you can zero the sector and start again, but many just RMA the drive. 

[mifronte]

fishface, watch your syslog during the post-read.  For me, preclear passed my two EARS that was formatted without the jumper.  During the post read, I started getting tons of errors when a certain sector was read (not the entire disk).

 

So I RMA both since I no longer trusted the two drives with my data.

[fishface]

I've bowed to the words of wisdom within this thread, they are currently on there way back to WD for replacement . I've been quite happy with the performance of the drives though, quiet, cool running and reasonably quick.

 

On the plus side, I've learned something during the process, and is a great way of learning the ins and outs of unRAID.

 

Thanks for all your help and advice.

[avilada]

After reading a lot of threads about  WD20EARS , this is my case and how i finaly solved it.

I had a parity WD20EARS with  jumper  and  other as a data disk(without jumper) running aparently normal.( the second was added to the array some months later and I'd forgotten the jumper issue)

 

After remember I had to jumper on every WD EARS  I tried  preclean after installing the jumper, but errors showed up. If the disk was precleaned without the jumper, errors appears on boot .

Finaly what fixed it up was Using the WD  "Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows" to zeroes the Disk  WITH jumper on, and after this added to  UNRAID (In this case it seems preclear zeroing didn't work). I had to assign/unassign a couple of times because first time disk was "orange-balled"

but  array showed up OK with the start button available.( nor the checkbox, only the start button )

 

 

I guess after the WD tool  you could use a preclear but i didnt and it worked for me.

 

PS: sorry for my english