Guys,

 

I am a complete neophyte to unRAID and Linux in general so please be easy on me.  I am in the process of implementing an unRAID box here at the house for media storage and am running into issues.  The box I am using is a "converted" WHS box that I could never get to properly stream BR iso's without stutter.  I threw hardware at the issue, but the DE problems software issues were never fixed, so unRAID was my software solution.  Currently I am running a machine that is FAR too overpowered for unRAID, but it is what I have at the moment and will eventually be transitioned to a different MB and CPU combination (like I said I threw hardware at my WHS issues)

 

Here is what I am running

 

iStar Storm 4U case with iStar 3x5 Caddies (10 total drive spaces)

Asus P5BV-C LGA775

Intel Xeon X3370 - Quad Core 3.0 GHz Processor

Crucial 2GB x 2 ECC Unbuffered RAM

Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8

 

Hard Drives:

1 x Seagate 500 GB 7200.11 - Cache

1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB 32MB/7200RPM - Parity

3 x Western Digital Green WD20EADS 2TB

 

So my issue....  After a bit of tinkering I was able to get my server to boot from the flash drive.  And I was able to get the web interface of unRAID.  Everything seemed quite easy until I attempted to assign my drives in the devices page to their appropriate "slots". 

 

I started small, with just assigning my Parity and Disk 1 (1 Black & 1 Green).  The Black is a new drive that I purchased specifically for use as my Parity, the Green was a drive that I used in my WHS.  All the data on the Green had been backed up to a separate disk and had normal Windows maintenance run on it (format, scanned for bad sectors, etc) prior to being added to my unRAID config.

 

Once I assigned my drives and started my array, I was prompted to format my drives.  I accepted the formatting process and began to wait.  Having read that formatting only takes a few minutes on the forums, I went on to other tasks and came back to hit refresh about 10 minutes later.  After hitting refresh, it still showed the drive as unformatted, so I formated again and waited 10 more minutes.  Again, after hitting refresh, it still showed the drive as unformatted, so I hit reboot.

 

When the server came back up, "disk 1" appeared with a size next to it and I could navigate to it on the network.  However when I tried to create a share on the disk or directly create a folder on the disk I got a permissions error.  Very frustrated, I tinkered and toyed with things until I just re-formatted the flash drive and re-formatted the "disk 1" in Windows and started again.  This time however, I did add a second Green drive to the array just to see what might be going on.

 

After stepping thru the setup again, I again could see "disk 1" and now "disk 2" on my network.  I still wasn't able to create a folder or file on "disk 1" because of "permissions error", but I could on "disk 2".  I thought it might be a bad SATA connection or cable on my board, so I swapped the drives, reset their slots in unRAID and was still unable to create a folder or file on my original "disk 1".

 

So I started again.  This time I viewed the syslog and saw a formatting error on "disk 1" that it had a bad sector, even though when I ran it thru Windows maintenance this didn't show up.  So I swapped the hard drive to a third Green drive I had available.

 

Again I started the process again, formatting the flash, getting unRAID to boot and adding the new "disk 1" and existing "disk 2" to my array, only to get the same formatting error on my new "disk 1".  So I swapped my new "disk 1" into a different physical slot on the server and tried to format again after a reboot, only to get the same formatting error.

 

So here I am.  I have 3 WD Green WD20EADS, 2 of which are showing bad sectors in unRAID formatting, but pass testing in Windows without issue.  Both drives were working fine in my WHS, I was able to move data off each one prior to "transitioning" to unRAID, but I can't use either one in my new server.  I ran both back thru Windows Error-Checking last night and both passed without issue.  I have requested an RMA from WD, but there is no telling how long it will take to get the new drives and I have NO protection in the mean time.

 

Can someone please give me a hand in getting things up and going properly.  It seems highly unlikely that I had 2 drives (of different vintage by the way) both have the same bad sectors at the same time and both pass Error-Checking.  I am happy to use the command line in unRAID to use Linux commands to help find/solve my issues, but like I said I'm a Windows guy in an unRAID world and would need very specific instructions to guide me.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

It was unclear of you had prepped the drives with the preclear script that many of us use. If you did use the preclear script, then yes, the drives should format very quickly. If you did not use the preclear script, it can take a very long time to format the disks, hours in fact.

 

If you need the preclear script here is a link.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2817

 

The post is a long one, but well worth the read. The script is attached to the post.

 

If you have precleared the drive(s), well than never mind....

What version of unRAID are you using, and please post a syslog.

 

What is the status of the Green drive 7-8 jumper, and what has been done with that jumper (on, off) in the past?

Guys thanks for the replies.

 

bkasten -

 

I have not run the pre-clear script.  I guess I missed this part, but I didn't run it on any of my drives and my "disk 2" formatted very quickly and is recognized.  I will run the pre-clear script on my drives.  I assume I do this in unRAID.

 

bubbaQ -

 

I am running 4.5.6.  The Green drives do not have jumpers on 7-8 and have never have.  When I purchased them for use in my WHS box, they went straight in, were formatted and put into use.  No jumpers, no alignment.  As I said in my long post, they work fine in the Windows environment.  I read a great deal on the forums and the EARS drives seemed to need the jumpers.  I am running the EADS drives.  Please let me know if this is my mistake and I will install jumpers.

 

TC

EADS drives do not need jumpers.

 

unRAID will run a clear process if an existing array exists and you are adding a drive to it. In your case, I would add all your drives to the array without assigning a parity drive. This will bypass the clearing process, and the drives will only need to be formatted (a two minute process). The clear process writes a zero to each and every position of the drive. Formatting writes a "signature structure" at the very beginning. If your drive can be cleared, it can be formatted.

 

Joe L.'s preclear script reads the entire disk, writes zeros to the entire disk and then verifies those writes. It also captures a smart report before and after the process to identify any differences. It is a must do for any drive you are not 100 percent sure of. It is also highly recommended to run it before adding any drives to an existing, parity protected array to allow the array to stay online during the clear process.

 

From your description, I am not 100 percent sure what happened. It is highly helpful if you post a system log when requesting help of this nature. The system log starts over after a reboot, so if you experience further problems of this nature, refer to the wiki on how to capture a system log. I have sometimes experienced an issue with the unRAID web interface not refreshing properly when performing a format or starting a parity check. I will reopen the page when this happens.

 

I know this is very frustrating, believe me it will be worth it. I have been using unRAID since the beginning and there have been a couple of times when I thought I would pull my hair out. The level of control and transparency to what the OS is doing to safeguard your data is worth the infrequent problems (always hardware related for me).

Here are the system logs from the last reboot until now.  I am running the preclear script at the moment and am only about 20% into it.  I am just glad this all happened on the initial setup and not after I had loaded all my data to the array.

 

syslog.zip