NASLite Network Attached Storage

NASLite+ (and the system bios) recognize my two Seagate ST3200822A 200GB hdds (the http page on the NAS device states: NOTE: Disk-1 is installed and can be configured for use with NASLite+. ) on both drives.

Problem is, the Administration utility states: Failed to configure Disk-1. disk-1 can be configured only if it is installed and is a fixed disk etc etc etc.

so, I assume, from the data provided on the http://NASLiteMachineIP/info/disk-1.htm page that the NASLite+ Opsys can , in fact, access the drives but the Administration Utility has some problem configuring these drives.

NOTE: these are both known good drives void of any partitions etc...

Any ideas?

I'm having a similar problem with NASLite recognizing a Maxtor 91021U2 10G drive.

The bios sees the drive fine, NASLite identifies it as hdd: during boot, but the admin utility fails with the message

unmount: /export/Disk-4: no such file or directory'

followed by the 'Failed to configure Disk-4...' message

Here's the info/disk-4.htm text:
Disk-4 Initialization Messages

Checking for Disk-4
Disk-4 is not available

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disk-4 Hardware
Maxtor 91021U2, ATA DISK drive
attached ide-disk driver.
host protected area => 1
20010816 sectors (10246 MB) w/512KiB Cache, CHS=19852/16/63, UDMA(33)

NOTE: Disk-4 is installed and can be configured for use with NASLite+.

We've tried to envoke this behavior by exercising the admin utility using a variety of hard drives/mb/BIOS configs, but were unable to replicate the problem. If anyone else is experiencing this behavior, please post your hardware/configuration.

The problem is most likely hardware/BIOS config specific, so without additional info it is virtually impossible for us to troubleshoot intelligently.

If there are additional reports of this problem, we'll pursue it further at that time.

At this point, since we have no solution to this problem, the drives may need to be partitioned using a full linux distribution. Use cfdisk to create a single Linux partition (fdX1) and save partition table to the disk. Retry NASLite admin utility accordingly.

Have tried this with several different PCs:

HP Pavilion Cel 533MHZ
Asus MOBO PIII 650 MHZ
Compaq Persario PII 450MHz

have tried the following:

partitioning the drives via Windows, DOS and Linux
Zero'ing the drives
reseting to 32GB, Part, reseting to Full

all to no avail...

Both Drives are WD 200GB 7200's
and have been checked with the WD util/boot disks

NOTE: The bios on all three machines recognize the drives
and NASLite+ on all three machine correctly identify the drives
(via the web site Drive-1 and Drive-2 pages saying the drives are
ready to be setup etc) The only problem seems to be the Admin util.

-Hankster-

Well,

I’m confused by the information in your posts. Your initial post sited 2 “Seagate ST3200822A 200GB” while your last post identifies the drives as “WD 200GB 7200's”. You also identified 3 separate machines that you tried with the drives (I assume the WDs), all without success.

If the Admin interface was unable to configure the drives even if the drives changed (Seagate/WD) and the host machine changed (3 different PCs), then I would have to agree that there is a problem with the Admin app.

I do however know for a fact that the same Admin app has no problems configuring drives (including 400G drives) on various configurations. I hope you understand why I am very puzzled by your experience and simply have no explanation for the behavior of your installations.

If someone else is experiencing the same behavior, please post some info on your setup so we can troubleshoot this intelligently. Given the above scenario, I don’t think that there is anything I can offer as a solution.

Yes These are indeed the same HDDs throughout
2 x Seagate ST3200822A 200GBs

I also have 2 x 120 WD HDDs I have tried with these same 3 machines
without luck.

I will next try a couple of 80GB drives (maxtor) and 120 GB (maxtors) to see if I can isolate the problem.

understand this, Thus far I have tried the 3 previous listed machines with two sets of 2 drives, 2 x Seagate 200GB and 2 x WD 120GB drives, all with the same results. I believe the problem lies with the admin portion of your software.

-Hankster-

I'm having the same problem with a 10G Maxtor 91021U2

Tried in 2 different PC's, same problem with both.
Asus A7M266
Gigabyte GA-7ZX

No problem recognizing a 6G Fujitsu or a 20G WD.

NASLite+ startup recognizes the drive at boot as hda:
The info/disk-1.htm screen shows the drive present.

The killer is that the admin screen shows the drive as [NOT A DISK]
Configuration attempts fail with the message:
unmount: /export/Disk-1: no such file or directory'

What can I do to help troubleshoot this?

Hi Greg,

Now we are getting somewhere

The message [ NOT A DISK ] is used in the context of "Storage Disk" and indicates that there is no partition on the drive. I removed all partitions from a couple of drives, leaving them essentially blank. Then I attempted to configure the drives – well now I see what you mean.

What really confused me is that in the above posts Hankster wrote:



Anyway, set a single partition on the troublesome 10G drive using fdisk and then try to configure it inside naslite. The disk status message should say [ UNSUCCESSFULL ] in red. The drive should then configure.

Let me know if that works. If it does, then we are on the right track and I know what to tweak.

I do appreciate the offer to send the 10G drive over for troubleshooting. I was going to take you up on it until I read your post.

This drive configuration issue has been interesting. Ralph and I spent a fair amount of time going over code, swapping hardware, exercising BIOS settings and nothing. Worked every time.

Thanks for the clue. Let me know if fdisk does the trick.

Tony,

Set the partition with fdisk, started up NASLite+ and it configured the drive fine.

Just for kicks, I also tried with a FAT32 partition. Also works fine.

I can consistently recreate the problem by starting with a blank drive (no partitions)

Is this something you can fix in NASLite+?

Thanks for all your help!

Hi Greg,

That is most definitely a fixable condition and I’ll get it corrected in the next few days.

Thank you and Hankster very much for the persistence and your support.

Today I bought a new Maxtor 7Y250PO drive (250Gb unformatted) to use with NASLite+. I had exactly the problem described here. I tried your solution, Tony, of creating a partition using FDISK (the large disk version downloaded from Microsoft), setting it active and then proceeding with the NASLite+ admin utility to format and set up the disk. Everything worked as described. I now have 230Gb of formatted storage visible to NASLite+. I have copied files to and fro and the performance is excellent.

However, something is really worrying me. When idle, the drive is making a regular clicking sound about every half-second. Normally, I would suspect a disk problem with such a noise, but I have run Maxtor's diagnostic which fully certifies the disk.

Is there any reason why NASLite+ would produce this effect with this disk / a large capacity disk? Or have I misunderstood something in your described fix? I have not used such a large capacity HDD before. I did not experience this effect with the old 4.5Gb Quantum drive I used for trying out NASLite+. Also, the new drive is perfectly quiet until NASLite+ runs, i.e. no clicking during the Maxtor diagnostic disk scan, nor when FDISKing in DOS 7, nor during boot up. The clicking begins following a concentrated, but brief, period of very noisy disk activity on entry to NASLite+. From observing the same effect during the Maxtor diagnostic, I believe this is during the SMART self-test.

I'd be grateful for any help on this. Thanks.

As an update to my last post, when I reboot the server it hangs at

Disk-1 - partition found.

The only remedy is to remove the floppy to invoke factory reset mode and reconfigure the disk!

I must be doing something wrong?

Hello nasfan,

On initial boot, when a storage drive is found NASLite+ issues a SMART self-test. Once the self-test completes, the drive will quiet down. In addition, every 5 seconds, NASLite+ will check the status of the drives, and beep if there is a problem, but that will not be a noisy process.

The reason NASLite+ appears to hang on “Disk-1 - partition found” is because it is checking the partition. It’s equivalent to check disk in windows. That happens when the drive was not unmounted properly - most often caused by shutting the server off rather that using the interface to shut down.

Anyway, if you let NASlite+ do it’s thing, the server should come online as soon as the check completes.

With large drives, the SMART self-test may take 10 or 20 minutes. Also, the disk check may take as long too if you have a lot of files on the drive. In general, however, letting NASLite+ take care of it’s housekeeping will result in a long-lasting safe and reliable fileserver solution.

I hope that explains the behavior you are observing.

Thanks, Tony. I'm afraid it's a different problem. The server does come online after the check, the HD LED is off and I can shift files to and fro perfectly and with excellent performance. The problem is this rhythmic clicking every half-second which does not go away.

View the NASLite+ Disk-1 Info page and see if the self-test is complete. If not, then the clicking is most likely normal. If the self-test is complete (Self-test execution status), then the drive may have a defect.

The Maxtor diagnostics will not detect a mechanical defect if the drive parameters are within the necessary thresholds, so it's difficult to tell.

I do think however that your drive is still in self-test so it's probably fine.