Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[grixx]

Avenger, you are off topic here since your problem has nothing to do with the 4k sector issue.

Besides, install both new drives and perform a factory reset. I am pretty sure the DNS-323 will then format the new drives successfully allowing you to use them normally afterwards.

And to come back on topic: check whether your drives are affected by the 4k problem. If they are I suggest to repartition the drives manually before you start filling the new drives with data.

grixx

[Avenger]

Avenger, you are off topic here since your problem has nothing to do with the 4k sector issue.

Besides, install both new drives and perform a factory reset. I am pretty sure the DNS-323 will then format the new drives successfully allowing you to use them normally afterwards.

And to come back on topic: check whether your drives are affected by the 4k problem. If they are I suggest to repartition the drives manually before you start filling the new drives with data.

grixx

Both drives were manually formatted as per post 1 which is why it is relevant to this topic.  I have them working fine until I hit step 9 and try inserting the second 4k drive, as at that point it no longer reads the drives and asks me to format them.  I can't let the dlink format them due to the performance hit the drive will take, which is the whole reason to format it, isnt it?

[grixx]

Avenger, sorry I have missed your point here. OK, I guess your problem is that you have gone through the manual partitioning procedure without having BOTH the new drives in the DNS-323 at the same time. For some reason the DNS-323 seems to get confused and wants to reformat the drives if you change the drive configuration.

If both drives are perfectly partitioned and formatted manually now I would try to perform a factory reset and see whether the DNS-323 will then accept the drives without reformatting.

Otherwise I am afraid that you have to go through the whole partitioning process again having both new drives inside the NAS from the very beginning.

Good luck, grixx

[Avenger]

I tried formatting and factory resetting numerous times.  The two drives work fine with one of the old drives in, but whenever I try to put them together it asks me for disk setup and I cannot access either on the network - it isnt detecting the partitions properly together.  Is there some sort of setting causing them to both name themselves the same or something?

[grixx]

Avenger, what I meant is you need to start with BOTH of the new drives inserted in the NAS. Then let the NAS partition and format both drives initially. Only after that and both drives are up and running you can start the process of manually partition and reformat the drives again. Now the DNS-323 knows about the wanted drive configuration. The only thing you do is moving the partition boundaries without the DNS-323 noticing.  Don't insert any other drives during this process. Otherwise the DNS-323 will get confused about the particular drive configuration in use and wants to reformat again in the end.

grixx

[derek_c_lee]

Tentimes,
Thanks for this excellent guide. I bought a WD20EARS w/o realizing it was not supported. I don't need RAID as I have two DNS 323s and this is for a backup drive.

I initially had problems when writing the partition table in step 7 and step 8.
I was getting the error below.

Code: [Select]

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.
Syncing disks.
root@elcapitan:
I initially ignored "WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy." and ran through all the steps. On reboot, the new drive partition was not recognized by the kernel so the DNS 323 asked me if I wanted to format it again.  After some searching around, I found someone on a linux forum had a similar error.

To get around the problem, I issued:

Code: [Select]

swapoff /dev/sdb1

That worked!  I am not sure why in Step (6), umount /mnt/HD_b1 did not work.
I saw two other posts that had the same problem with no posted resolution.
Perhaps you can add that to the guide.

[ddombrowski]

Forgive my ignorance, as I am but limited in knowledge of linux (even though I do use it at work).  Would it be possible to do a format of these 4k sector drives in a separate machine using a regular installation (or liveCD version) of say, ubuntu, and then drop the drive back into the DNS323? 

I appreciate you taking the time to list out the steps to do it on the DNS323, but to be honest, I've read it a few times and I'm still completely confused.  I think it might be easier (for me) to just use a GUI based partitioning tool capable of handling 4k sectors, then dropping it back into the NAS box.

[gnubie]

Hi Tentimes,
Thanks so much for the guide.  I bought 2x 2TB WD EARS drives without realising that they weren't supported by the NAS.  I had a horrible sinking feeling once I found out...

But I came across this and it worked perfectly on both drives.

Thanks for your efforts in figuring out all the magic numbers!

[Avenger]

Hey, I have the 2tb f4 samsung drives, and I have installed them without using this method, as I could not get it to recognize 2 of them properly without it asking to format them in the dns-323.  What sort of degredation will occur?  I have now filled the drives a few times, and notice that I get 3-10mb write speeds over my gigabit network, and occasional stuttering during video playback on my device.  Does this sound like it is caused by not properly installing the drives?

[tentimes]

I'm just posting to say that I don't often read the forum these days, but still use my trusty 323. If you have a problem with the method, PLEASE read through what other have done to solve it, failing that, if you don't get a reply on the forum I don't mind you PM'ing me, but only about the method (i.e. I don't know answers to stuff like how it will degrade, will this work with X drive specifically etc).

Also, please remember you MUST power down the NAS to change a drive! This would fix some of the problems being reported.

I'm glad to see this has been of help to some people

[tentimes]

Tentimes,
Thanks for this excellent guide. I bought a WD20EARS w/o realizing it was not supported. I don't need RAID as I have two DNS 323s and this is for a backup drive.

I initially had problems when writing the partition table in step 7 and step 8.
I was getting the error below.

Code: [Select]

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.
Syncing disks.
root@elcapitan:
I initially ignored "WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy." and ran through all the steps. On reboot, the new drive partition was not recognized by the kernel so the DNS 323 asked me if I wanted to format it again.  After some searching around, I found someone on a linux forum had a similar error.

To get around the problem, I issued:

Code: [Select]

swapoff /dev/sdb1

That worked!  I am not sure why in Step (6), umount /mnt/HD_b1 did not work.
I saw two other posts that had the same problem with no posted resolution.
Perhaps you can add that to the guide.

Thanks, someone had also pm'd me about this and I have added it to step 6. If it causes problems can someone pm me again please? I don't read the forums too much but a pm will send me an email

[Stan Doubt]

Tentimes,

Thank you so much for the helpful guide.  I bought the 321 on sale at Tiger Direct and based on the success stories documented in this thread got a couple 1.5TB EARS drives to go in it. 

I had exactly the same problem as Avenger when following the instructions, and the solution proposed by grixx was the answer.  Maybe the guide should be updated to say that if you are going to be formatting two brand new drives you have to insert both and let the DLink format them otherwise it does not expect to be using two separate drives.  When done exactly according to the instructions in the guide, I only got Volume 1 to show up.

Thanks again,

Stan

[dangruhn]

First off, thanks to tentimes for this guide and others on the web who have written things about the DNS-323 family. This post culls from all of you.

In my case, I only had a single, 2TB  WD EARS drive that I wanted formatted correctly. I also had a 2GB USB thumb drive and wanted to use it while re-formatting the EARS drive but haven't found a way to get the 323 to boot from that drive. So here is what I did to get to the point where i was running from the USB drive.

Follow tentimes' procedure so that you can telnet or ssh to your 232 and that you have the new fdisk installed.

Create a .bootstrap directory in /mnt/HD_a2

Code: [Select]

# cd /mnt/HD_a2
# mkdir -p .bootstrap
Download the USB kernel module from http://www.domaigne.com/download/dns-323/usb-storage.ko and put it into the .bootstrap directory.

Install the USB kernel module so that you can get to the USB drive.

Code: [Select]

# insmod .bootstrap/usb-storage.ko
(You will have to wait about 20 seconds for things to settle down.)

If the USB drive is not already partitioned and formatted, you will need to do that.

Code: [Select]

# fdisk /dev/sdb
n
p   [for primary partition]
1   [in response to choose partition]
1   [when asked for first cylinder]
[Press enter to accept the default value = last cylinder available]
w [write and exit]
# mke2fs /dev/sdb1

Now, mount the USB drive.

Code: [Select]

# mkdir /mnt/HD_b1
# mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/HD_b1

In the .bootstrap directory, add the following setup.sh script. Make sure that it is formatted with just linefeeds and not carriage return and linefeed.

Code: [Select]

#!/bin/sh
#***********************************************************
# Script to mount a USB drive and change the FFP_PATH to it.
#***********************************************************

# USB mounting location
USB_MNT=/mnt/HD_b1

# Make mount point for USB drive
mkdir $USB_MNT

# Mount the USB drive
insmod /mnt/HD_a2/.bootstrap/usb-storage.ko
sleep 20
mount /dev/sdb1 $USB_MNT

# Change location of FFP to mounted USB drive
FFP_PATH=$USB_MNT/ffp

Finally, make the setup.sh script executable and make a duplicate of HD_a2 in HD_b1

Code: [Select]

# chmod a+x .bootstrap/setup.sh
# tar -cf - . |  ( cd /mnt/HD_b1; tar -xf -)

When you reboot your 232, you will have your 2TB drive mounted at /mnt/HD_a2 and /mnt/HD_a4 with a swap from /dev/sda1 and your USB drive will be at /mnt/HD_b1. Telnet or ssh into the 232 and follow tentimes' procedure for unmounting and reformatting the entire /dev/sda disk. It will be just like the two disk case except that you will be working with /dev/sda, so be careful to partiion and format the correct drive!

NOTE: You have to add the swap space (swapon /dev/sda1) on the 2TB drive before you can use mke2fs to make the large filesystem. If you don't, it runs out of memory space.

[tentimes]

I'm posting on my own ori9ginal thread to see if anyone has tried the new 1.10b7 with my drive fix? I would think it would play nice with it, but am scared to be the first one to try it Theoretically the disk should look like a 'normal' disk to it, and it is only the sector location / boundaries that I have changed.

Anyone tried it yet?

I'll jump if nobody else checks in

[dosborne]

With 1.10b7, your fix should no longer be required as it has 4k support, correct?

I formatted 2x2TB EAR HDDs with 1.10b7, then rolled back to 1.09, installed FFP 0.5 and have this unit running smoothly along with 2 other DNS323s.