there is no checkbox below the start button.  there is only a checkbox below the "restore" button and checking that enables the "restore" button, but not the "start" button"

OK, that is probably because there is more than one drive missing/changed from when you shut it down.

 

You can use the restore button now that you have unassigned disk3 and parity.  It should then just start up and not calculate parity.  If you have already installed the new replacement drive in a spare slot it probably will show it as "unformatted" in the web-management utility. It should format that drive. (it may do that first before bringing the array on-line, I honestly don't remember, but I seem to recall it cleared the drive first and then added it.  Of course, I had a parity drive active at the time, so it might not need the clear step if one is not present. It might not care and clear the drive first anyway... don't know)

 

When you add disk3 back in again, you will want to again use "restore" as it is a new configuration.  You will need to use it once more when you remove the old disk3 once you get whatever data off it you can. 

 

In my personal opinion, the "Restore" button is poorly labeled.  It should instead be labeled "Initialize/Save Device Configuration"  It does not restore data.  It instead saves the current configuration as defined on the Devices page. Missing or un-assigned devices will no longer be considered part of the array.    Each time you add or delete a drive to the config you need to use it. (or assign/unassign a drive)

 

If there is a parity drive assigned when you save a configuration, parity will be re-calculated using the other assigned data drives.  If not, no parity will be calculated and your data is unprotected, but still available on the data drives shared on your network. 

 

If there are more than one failing drive, or more than one drive missing (because they used to be assigned and you now unassigned them) you will not be able to start the array and MUST use the poorly labeled "Restore" button to save a current configuration with the currently available (assigned and working) drives.

 

Perhaps you can lobby Tom to re-name his "Restore" button to  "Initialize/Save Device Configuration"

In the same way, the "Reboot" button is currently labeled as as "Resetting the array"  It does not reset the array, it reboots the server.  I know it is a slight difference, but one less possibility for confusion. Its description should say "Takes the array off line, reboots it, and brings it back online.

ok i understand - thanks for all the info!

 

but now of course one more complication.  I rebooted the server and right now, my the array is stopped (just as described before).  the parity drive is unassigned, disk 1 is disabled (red icon), and all other disks are green.

 

so with that said, if i were to click the restore button i assume it would bring the array online, and i would lose the contents of disk 1?

 

UGH!  i cant wait till this is all worked out.  i will tell you one thing - i will never switch the motherboard for a different model again.

ok i understand - thanks for all the info!

 

but now of course one more complication.  I rebooted the server and right now, my the array is stopped (just as described before).  the parity drive is unassigned, disk 1 is disabled (red icon), and all other disks are green.

 

so with that said, if i were to click the restore button i assume it would bring the array online, and i would lose the contents of disk 1?

 

UGH!  i cant wait till this is all worked out.  i will tell you one thing - i will never switch the motherboard for a different model again.

If disk1 is now disabled I would find a different mother board, right now.

 

You are correct, it is not likely the array will start with disk1 disabled and you re-initialized it using the "Restore" button, and although the contents of disk1 would not be erased, it would not be part of your array until you added it back AND COMMUNICATIONS WITH IT WERE RE-ESTABLISHED.

 

You have hardware issues.  I'm not convinced yet that disk3 is truly bad... it might be, but the odds of disk1 now being bad too is pretty low, unless you managed to dislodge the cabling to disk1 as you removed disk3.

 

I suspect your motherboard is having a tough time with the AHCI vs IDE settings.  It might be as simple as setting the motherboard to AHCI (the emulated IDE setting seems to incur very poor performance for most folks) and also editing the  syslinux.cfg file located on your flash drive as described by Tom so interrupt handling by the Linux kernel is back the way it existed in version 4.0 and previous of unRaid.

Edit the file 'syslinux.cfg' on the Flash device.  On the line that reads:

 

append initrd=bzroot rootdelay=10

 

change to

 

append initrd=bzroot rootdelay=10 nolapic

 

Then, reboot your server.

 

This thread http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=918.0 might apply to you. The irqpoll parameter might also help your motherboard.  You might try it as well adding it to the end of the line in the syslinux.cfg file.

 

If you add it, the line would then be:

append initrd=bzroot rootdelay=10 nolapic irqpoll

 

Whatever you do, do NOT format and of your old disks (ok to format the new one) and do not proceed until all the disks you have connected are green. (or blue if it is the new one you know to be unformatted)

 

No point in starting the array at all if the disk communications are messed up. As I said, until then, you have hardware issues.

 

Joe L.

If disk1 is now disabled I would find a different mother board, right now.

 

man that really sucks - after everything i went through to get this motherboard and get it installed i don't want to have to ship it back to newegg again.... so frustrating.

 

You have hardware issues.  I'm not convinced yet that disk3 is truly bad... it might be, but the odds of disk1 now being bad too is pretty low, unless you managed to dislodge the cabling to disk1 as you removed disk3.

 

yea i agree it seems unlikely that both of these drives would have failed for seemingly no reason - at the same time.

 

I suspect your motherboard is having a tough time with the AHCI vs IDE settings.  It might be as simple as setting the motherboard to AHCI (the emulated IDE setting seems to incur very poor performance for most folks)

 

i will try this too - in the past it hasn't seemed to make too much difference - but at this point i will try anything.  i do also have one PCI slot left and i have a promise SATA controller that i can install.  i don't want to use that as a permanent solution because it seems like a waste of the onboard SATA ports but maybe that will help me at least get the drives back up so i can get my data off.

 

If you add it, the line would then be:

append initrd=bzroot rootdelay=10 nolapic irqpoll

 

i will definitely give this a shot and see if it helps anything.

 

 

ok so i just tried to do a reiserfs -y /dev/sdc  which is disk 3 and i got the following:

reiserfs_open: the reiserfs superblock cannot be found on /dev/sdc.

Failed to open the filesystem.

 

If the partition table has not been changed, and the partition is

valid  and  it really  contains  a reiserfs  partition,  then the

superblock  is corrupted and you need to run this utility with

--rebuild-sb.

 

so i did a reiserfsck --rebuild-sb /dev/sdc

 

and it asks me what version of reiserFS i am using:

reiserfs_open: the reiserfs superblock cannot be found on /dev/sdc.

 

what the version of ReiserFS do you use[1-4]

        (1)  3.6.x

        (2) >=3.5.9 (introduced in the middle of 1999) (if you use linux 2.2, ch

oose this one)

        (3) < 3.5.9 converted to new format (don't choose if unsure)

        (4) < 3.5.9 (this is very old format, don't choose if unsure)

        (X)  exit

 

what do i choose?

ok so i also installed the PCI Promise SATA card and plugged disk1 into it.  the bios detected it and everythgin but when i booted into unraid the web interface still says disk1 is disabled.

 

so at this point i am thinking that maybe its nto that disk 1 and 3 are failing - maybe its just that they have bad blocks due to the craziness - maybe the blocks just got corrupted.

 

so i guess i will try the reiserfsck but which version do i choose?

ok so i found that i am using reiserfs 3.6.19 so i chose option 1.

 

now it is says:

Enter block size [4096]:

 

what do i put there?

ok so i found that i am using reiserfs 3.6.19 so i chose option 1.

 

now it is says:

Enter block size [4096]:

 

what do i put there?

Nothing.  You are specifing the wrong parameter to the reiserfsck command.

 

Your file system is on /dev/sdc1  it is not on /dev/sdc. (note the additional "1" on the device name)

That is why reiserfsck is complaining.

 

Try

reiserfsck /dev/sdc1

 

If it says to use the rebuild option then try it again with it specified, again with /dev/sdc1.

 

In Linux, /dev/sdc represents the whole disk, before partitioning. /dev/sdc1 is the first partition on the disk and unRaid uses that. /dev/sdc2 would be the second partition, but unRaid does not create or use a second partition.

 

Later, if your array is started and you have a parity drive enabled, use /dev/md1, /dev/md2, etc instead of /dev/sdc1, /dev/sdd1, etc.  That way, when any corruption is corrected, the parity drive will also be updated.

 

Joe L.

good catch.  thanks.  that seemed to work.

 

after messing around with reiserfsck i ended up rebooting with parity still off and disk 1 came up disabled.  so at that point i said "screw it" and just hit the "restore" button, and all the drives (including disk1) came up blue.

 

then i started the array and all drives 1 through 8 were green!  so i shut down, added my new disk and booted up.

once booted up i stopped the array, assigned the new disk to drive 9 and started the array. 

i was prompted to format the new disk and now all 9 drives are green and online.

 

right now i am copying the contents of disk 1 and disk 3 over to disk 9 (the new disk).

when that's done i am going to remove disk 1 and 3 from the array, reformat them from my PC, and then re-insert them into the array as new disks.

then i will copy the contents of disk 9 back to 1 and 3 and remove disk 9 from the array and keep it aside as a spare.

 

hopefully that will all work.

 

again i really appreciate all your help with this Joe L. and anyone else who posted.