Hi guys, i have a problem with my already jumpered EARS and thinking of unjumpering it to use it in Adavanced format with unraid 4.7

Searching through the forums i am given to understand that using:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb count=8

will allow the drive to be properly precleared/used in the array again without the jumper. Am i right or do i need to do something else?

Thanks in advance...

Hi guys, i have a problem with my already jumpered EARS and thinking of unjumpering it to use it in Adavanced format with unraid 4.7

Searching through the forums i am given to understand that using:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb count=8

will allow the drive to be properly precleared/used in the array again without the jumper. Am i right or do i need to do something else?

Thanks in advance...

You ONLY need to do that if the disk does not respond once you remove the jumper.  If it responds, you don't need to use it.  

 

Oh yes, use the correct disk ... do not use /dev/sdb unless /dev/sdb is the disk being cleared.

What is the problem?

 

If you first used the drive somewhere without the jumper then sometimes the drives don't like having a jumper added and can never be made to work right with the jumper. Most people get them working but there are a few here who gave up and rma'd their drives to get a new one that could be jumpered.

 

If you added the jumper new out of the box then it should have worked fine.

 

So, as I asked, what was the issue? You might just have a bad drive.

 

Peter

@Joe:thanx

 

@lionelhutz:

Well, the thing is that my EARS drive gets precleared up to a point and then stalls. i have tried preclear first with a jumper (straight from the box) and then without.

 

I have bought 3 ears drives. 1 of them  was precleared fine, 2 have this problem with preclear. when i returned one of them and got a new one it precleared fine. but the other one i returned they told me they tested it and it's fine. so i run various test like wd diagnostics, windows chkdsk and even spinrite and indeed they show that it is ok. so i am hoping that if i use it in native AF with the new 4.7 unraid i may see some good results.

 

Otherwise i dont know what to do with the disk. it might actually be a bug with preclear because i have seen too many people having problems with ears and i thoroughly tested mine for any problems, but how can i be sure

@Joe:thanx

 

@lionelhutz:

Well, the thing is that my EARS drive gets precleared up to a point and then stalls. i have tried preclear first with a jumper (straight from the box) and then without.

 

I have bought 3 ears drives. 1 of them  was precleared fine, 2 have this problem with preclear. when i returned one of them and got a new one it precleared fine. but the other one i returned they told me they tested it and it's fine. so i run various test like wd diagnostics, windows chkdsk and even spinrite and indeed they show that it is ok. so i am hoping that if i use it in native AF with the new 4.7 unraid i may see some good results.

 

Otherwise i dont know what to do with the disk. it might actually be a bug with preclear because i have seen too many people having problems with ears and i thoroughly tested mine for any problems, but how can i be sure

The preclear script does not do anything that won't happen when you use the drive in your array.  It reads all the sectors and writes all the sectors.  If it is locking up part way, post a syslog.  It might have the clues why.

 

If you cannot type

fdisk -l /dev/sdX

for your disk and get a response, look for the disk to be the problem, not the pre-clear script...

(as much as I'd love for you to find a bug... it is unlikely unless you have a very old version of the preclear script (pre .9.3) that tripped a bug with the "bash" shell and waiting on background processes more than 4096 times.)

 

On the other hand, many people had had to zero out the first sector when changing the jumper settings before the disk would not lock up.  (and refuse to do anything until power cycled)

 

Joe L.

it is true that fdisk would not work after preclear would stall and i had to restart the server for it to work (you actually helped me with that in the 'questions about preclear' forum) . And i understand you probably are right that's why i have put the latest preclear script in my flash and will try again when i have the time. but how posting the syslog will help? does syslog contain info on disks that are not part of the array?

 

And the other question is why does the EARS pass all the other tests? (spinrite is very rigid, AFAIK)

The syslog is the system log. It contains any and all log events on the Linux system including drives and hardware outside of unRAID's use.

it is true that fdisk would not work after preclear would stall and i had to restart the server for it to work (you actually helped me with that in the 'questions about preclear' forum) . And i understand you probably are right that's why i have put the latest preclear script in my flash and will try again when i have the time. but how posting the syslog will help? does syslog contain info on disks that are not part of the array?

 

And the other question is why does the EARS pass all the other tests? (spinrite is very rigid, AFAIK)

You will want to zero out the initial sectors before doing anything else or the same type of lockup failure will occur.

 

dd if=/dev/zero count=8 of=/dev/sdX

(where sdX = your device to be cleared)

 

Joe L.

 

Did you do any extra tests on the original disks? I'm just wondering if you determined what appeared wrong with them.

 

It sounds like there is a read/write problem with the disk when it gets to a certain point on the platters. WD might have just run tests like you did, ie it connects and the SMART looks OK and then sent it back to you.

 

Did one of the other tests involve a long SMART test or writing to every sector of the drive?

 

Peter

in all tests except preclear they seemed fine

 

Also, the disks were not send to WD but the service department of the shop i bought them tested the disk and said it's OK (they have a point, most of HDs returned are usually OK but inexperianced people mistake them for faulty). That's when a i performed all the tests since, of course, i do not trust the service department blindly. also, before preclearing each time i used the dd command tha Joe mentions

dd if=/dev/zero count=8 of=/dev/sdX

 

Even the long smart test came out fine.

Something sure seems wrong with it. Just RMA it to WD and get rid of it.

 

Peter

Does this thread imply that if I have existing EARS drives (unjumpered since that's how I started using them with Windows Home Server), I should leave them unjumpered for preclear?

 

And then jumper them prior to mounting as part of the unRAID array?

 

Or leave it unjumpered altogether?

 

I'm just a bit confused with what's going on here 

Does this thread imply that if I have existing EARS drives (unjumpered since that's how I started using them with Windows Home Server), I should leave them unjumpered for preclear?

 

And then jumper them prior to mounting as part of the unRAID array?

 

Or leave it unjumpered altogether?

 

I'm just a bit confused with what's going on here 

 

no,not at all

 

you should not remove or add the jumper fter preclear or you will loose your preclear signature and have to preclear again. up to now the recommended action would be to use the jumper and then preclear.

that said, there are new unraid betas available for downloading that support advanced formating HDs such as EARS. the new preclear script by Joe also supports advanced formatting. so the combination of those 2 allows unjumpered AF HDs to be used.

 

 

At this point I would forget trying to jumper it. Run Joe's new pre-clear with the -A option and with the jumper off. Then, upgrade to 4.7b1 and try adding the drive and see what happens.

 

If you don't want to experiment with the beta release then RMA the drive so you get a new one that can use the jumper.

 

Other people have run into EARS drives that would not accept a jumper after they had been used.

 

Peter

 

Thanks for the input folks!