Thanks for the reply mbryanr,

 

I need to look into it unmenu more.

 

Preclear finished running, while it was running I read a post about the WDEARS HD's and setting a jumper on pins 7-8 to increase serctor size or something.  I have not formated drive yet.

 

Question: Can I add jumper and then format the drive, or do I need to preclear after jumper is added?

 

thanks again,

 

Oscar

You might want to check first http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Advanced_Format_Drives

 

Also, might want to wait on one of the more knowledgable folks to guide you. Since in part of the above link it has the following:

 

Should I install the jumper before or after preclearing the drive?

 

Before. There is danger involved in installing the jumper after:

 

WARNING !

 

If you put the jumper into place after the pre-clear script has been run or it is added to unRAID directly the disk will substitute sector 1 when accessing sector 0, 2 when accessing 1 ... 64 when accessing 63, 65 when accessing 64, etc. This will improve performance since the partition starting on sector 63 is then fooled into using a sector (64) aligned on the 4k boundaries.

 

The "partition table" that holds the original partition table, master boot record and pre-clear signature looked for by unRAID will not be visible. They were in sector 0. (no longer visible with the jumper in place) The "cleared" sector 1 (now presented as 0) will be completely blank... as you cleared it to be all zeros.

 

The disk will still work perfectly in unRAID, but unRAID will perform a clearing and partitioning of the disk on its own. It will do this if you have already assigned a parity disk to your server because it will not detect a pre-clear signature.

 

In simple terms apply the jumper BEFORE adding the disk to unRAID. Applying the jumper to a HDD already in unRAID will likely result in data loss.

Yes I read that, and I am not clear if preclearing a drive, formats it, and makes it ready for use after preclear runs.  I understood that preclear writes 0,1 to the entire drive, checks for errors and puts it thru its paces, then it still needs to be formated to be ready to copy data to it.  But I am a total noob and have no authority to know that for sure. So I A$$UME that is what happens.  And  you know what happens when you ASSUME.  LOL  Well I am in no rush to to get my UnRaid up and going, I just want to get it done right, and not have to mess with it after Data has been coppied to it.

 

Thank you Graywolf for the quick post,

 

Oscar

Clarification:

 

In simple terms apply the jumper BEFORE adding the disk to unRAID. Add it before using the disk at all.  Add it before pre-clearing the disk.

 

Applying the jumper to a HDD already ASSIGNED to the unRAID ARRAY  will result in the data on it being unreadable.  It will not be able to be mounted.   It will probably show as un-formatted.

 

If you add the jumper afterwards, the pre-clear script will not be able to properly read the disk geometry.  most times it will be necessary to zero out the first few sectors before a preclear can again be run.

 

Pre-clearing a drive does NOT format it.  It does partition it.  You do not need to format the drive, and, in fact, it would be a mistake if you did, as it would make the drive look like it was NOT pre-cleared.    Let unRAID's programs format the drive when you press the "Format" button on its web-interface.

 

Joe L.

Ok thanks Joe L.

 

That cleared it up for me.  This is what I did before: After running preclear, I shut down the server and  installed the jumper, then I restarted UnRaid.  Then I was going to assign the drive and format it from web-interface, when I remembered the what I read about the advanced formating on the WDEARS drives.

 

So just to confirm, I need to:

1.  run preclear script again

2. then assign the drive to array

3. format from web-interface

 

Than I can start transfering data

 

many thanks guys,

 

Oscar

That is the slow and safe way, yes.  If you want to speed it up, you could run preclear with the modifiers that make it skip certain steps (skip the pre-read and post-read, for example).  I don't remember the syntax, but it is in the first page of the preclear thread.

Cool, I don't mind doing it slow and sure.  No problem.

 

Thanks again for the replies,

 

 

Oscar

 

You will probably need to zero out the first few sectors before you can even run the pre-clear.

 

Joe L.

Ok guys Preclear has run.    33 hours later   When I go to the Web-interface, in the common area, the array says stoped invalid configeration with a red dot before it.  I have not assigned the drive to the array yet.

 

So, can I do the following?

1: I assign the drive to the array

2: format drive

3: start coping data to drive

 

Just making sure those are the next steps

 

Thanks again

 

Oscar

Pretty close:

 

1) Assign drive to the array

2) Format drive (make sure that only that drive shows up as unformatted)

3) Start the array

4) Start copying data to the drive

Pretty close:

 

1) Assign drive to the array

2) Format drive (make sure that only that drive shows up as unformatted)

3) Start the array

4) Start copying data to the drive

I think that step 2 and 3 are transposed...  You'll not see the "Format" button until the array is started.  The array must be started to allow parity to be calculated on the formatting you are performing.

 

So...

1. Assign the drive to the array

2. Start the array

3. The new drive should display as "unformatted"

4. Only the new drive should show as "unformatted"

5. Press "Format" to format the new drive.

6. Start copying the data to the new drive.