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[brankwan]

Hi ECF,

I had restored to factory default and still it is asking me to format the HDD. This is most annoying. You do not see this happening in your lab environment?

[brankwan]

This is really some serious bug you should look at in your next firmware release. I had HDD1 and HDD2 in my system now and it keep prompting me to format HDD1. I went out and bought another 2 disk, HDD3 and HDD4. I copied all my data from HDD1 to HDD2 and then inserted HDD3 and HDD4 and rebooted. When it start up, it detect HDD1, HDD3 and HDD4 as new disk and so I formatted them and it rebooted.

After startup it now detect my HDD2 as a new drive and this drive has all my data now. Damn it!!!
I had spent 2 days copying my data from HDD1 to HDD2. Some thing is really screwing up here or am I the only one experiencing it. If this is the case, Dlink should advise to start the NAS with all 4 disk!

In this case there is no funplug and I had restored to factory default and on firmware 1.03. So is this a bug or what?

[ECF]

Brankwan

Yeah something is really odd here. After you copied the Data from HDD1 to HDD2 you had the data duplicated in both drives correct? Did you try logging into the unit at anytime at this point before installing the 2 new drives to see if the unit would prompt you to format both drives?

Unfortunately it looks like you will need to copy your data to another drive once again in order to find a remedy. See if this issue manifests on this other volume or you just might have to format HDD2 as it asks and go from there. Its odd but it looks like it may have something to do with the data on the volume.

[jingwei79]

Has this been solved? Thinking of getting a second disk but worried about the data on disk 1, what is the procedure to add on a second disk. My first disk is formatted as standard.

[ECF]

This is really some serious bug you should look at in your next firmware release. I had HDD1 and HDD2 in my system now and it keep prompting me to format HDD1. I went out and bought another 2 disk, HDD3 and HDD4. I copied all my data from HDD1 to HDD2 and then inserted HDD3 and HDD4 and rebooted. When it start up, it detect HDD1, HDD3 and HDD4 as new disk and so I formatted them and it rebooted.

After startup it now detect my HDD2 as a new drive and this drive has all my data now. Damn it!!!
I had spent 2 days copying my data from HDD1 to HDD2. Some thing is really screwing up here or am I the only one experiencing it. If this is the case, Dlink should advise to start the NAS with all 4 disk!

In this case there is no funplug and I had restored to factory default and on firmware 1.03. So is this a bug or what?

I looks to me that installing fun plug may cause such issues as this. Every time I hear of such an issue on this device or DNS-323 Funplug is mentioned. Now that is is removed I would recommend backing up your data and formating the drive if it prompts you.

[muggins]

i am suffering the same problems as the others in this thread.  i had 2x320G in slots 1 & 2, and 2x2T in slots 3 & 4.  i removed the 320s from slots 1 & 2,  pulled the drives in slots 3 & 4 partway out, and put new 2TB drives in slots 1 & 2.  Powered up, formatted the new drives, powered down.  Reseated the drives in slots 3 & 4, and rebooted.  Web interface wants to format drives in what it says are slots 1 & 2; However the serial #s are for the original drives in slots 3 & 4.  i shuffled the drives around and discovered that it doesn't want to reformat my 2 old drives as long as they are the only ones in the system no matter what slots they are in.  However, whenever there are 4 drives installed, it wants to format the original 2 drives with all my data on them.

Knowing how long copying the data will take, i am going to set up a linux computer and copy from disc 1 to disc 3 and from disc 2 to disc 4.  Then i am going to stick all 4 drives back in and hope it only formats 2 of them.  Thank goodness all these drives are set up as standard, not raid.

[twg]

as someone posted a few posts up, there are serial #s and "magic numbers" that are generated by the 343 that is specific to the HDs that are inserted. When these get out of sync, even though the data seems to be in tact the 343 will want to format the drives... check the other DNS-323/343 forum for solution on how to manually sync these numbers again...

[muggins]

twg i did see that info.  too much trouble for me.  i just copied the data back over the last couple of days while i was at work.  20 minutes left on the copy, then i can put all 4 drives back and leave it alone for a while.

[JavaLawyer]

I experienced a similar problem with my DNS-343 a while back.  With all four HDD's formatted as standard volumes, I swapped Volume_2, rebooted, and pressed "skip" when asked to format the new drive.  Upon reboot, only Volume_1 was recognized, while Volume_2, Volume_3 and Volume_4 were not recognized.

The only way to access the data on the missing volumes was to pull all HDDs from the DNS-343 and insert the HDD I needed to access in slot 1 (while leaving all remaining slots empty) and reboot.

Fortunately, I had just purchased a second DNS-343 to mirror the first (four HDDs as standard volumes), so I incrementally placed each HDD in slot 1 of the first DNS-343 and copied the data to my newly formatted second DNS-343.  This process was tedious, taking approximately a week to copy all four Volumes.  Then I completely reformatted the first DNS-343 and copied all of the data back (completing my mirror), consuming yet another week.

The lesson I learned was never to press "skip" after inserting a new HDD, the results are always disastrous.

[muggins]

Spent 2 days copying my data to drives 3 & 4 in the 343.  Slots 1 & 2 are empty.  Add drives to slots 1 & 2.  DNS 343 formats them.  Fine, reboot.  Now the DNS 343 wants to format the drives in slots 3 & 4, which have been in it all along!  i feel like i am chasing my tail here.

i am currently copying only irreplaceable data from the 343's drives to my 323, and then i will slap all four drives into the 343.  then i will spend the next couple of weeks ripping my CDs and DVDs all over again.

[JavaLawyer]

Spent 2 days copying my data to drives 3 & 4 in the 343.  Slots 1 & 2 are empty.  Add drives to slots 1 & 2.  DNS 343 formats them.  Fine, reboot.  Now the DNS 343 wants to format the drives in slots 3 & 4, which have been in it all along!  i feel like i am chasing my tail here.

I had the same experience during my early woes with the DNS-343.  From my own experience (and experimentation), if slot 1 is empty while one or more of the remaining slots are populated, and you format a new HDD in slot 1 and reboot, any existing HDDs in slots 2-4 must be reformated to be recognized.  This makes no sense to me, but that's how the unit currently functions.

[JavaLawyer]

as someone posted a few posts up, there are serial #s and "magic numbers" that are generated by the 343 that is specific to the HDs that are inserted. When these get out of sync, even though the data seems to be in tact the 343 will want to format the drives... check the other DNS-323/343 forum for solution on how to manually sync these numbers again...

Can you point us to the post containing this information?  I searched the 323/343 boards and haven't come across anything relevant (perhaps my keywords are off).

[muggins]

It is in page 1 of THIS thread.

[JavaLawyer]

It is in page 1 of THIS thread.

Thanks!  The answer was right under my nose all along. . .

Does modifying the serials work?  Had I had this information when I was configuring/re-configuring my two DNS-343s a month ago, I could have saved a full week+ of copying and HDD burn-in.

[Jack-TBJ]

Hi!

I had the same problem with formatting new disks with ffp installed, but i find the way how to fix it.
I have 4 HDDs not in raid.

When you need to add new HDD to NAS, you can use this step-by-step solution:
0. You need ffp plug installed;
1. Take out all HDDs from NAS;
2. Insert new HDD into drive bay 1;
3. Boot NAS, login into web admin site and format HDD;
4. Take out new HDD and insert old HDDs into their bays (disk with ffp installed must be in 1-st bay), then insert new HDD into free bay;
5. Boot NAS and login into it using ssh or telnet;
6. Run  hd_verify. In output search for mtd_smagic value (something like 079e9865cf36a576c91......). Write it out somewhere. Also you need write out serials of all HDDs (in the begining of output of hd_verify). Write out serials in pairs: sda - serial, sdb - serial, etc.
7. Go into /mnt/HD_a4, there is file with name starting with dot, something like .x37c9E.
Structure of this file looks like:
magic: 079e9865cf36a576c91.............
mac: <mac address of nas>
node: sda
p2: NORMAL * <hdd serial1> * <hdd serial2> * <hdd serial3>

I have 4 HDD installed, so there is 3 serials. If you have less HDD, you'll get less serials (qty of HDDs - 1)

You need edit this file next way:
a) replace old magic with new one;
b) replace <hdd serials> with serials of all disks, except serial of current disk(in this case sda).
i.e.:
p2: NORMAL * <hdd serial1(sdb)> * <hdd serial2(sdc)> * <hdd serial3(sdd)>

8. Repeat step 7 for the same file on another disks (/mnt/HD_b4, c4, d4).
9. I'm not sure it's necessary, but in last step I execute write_hdverify.
10. Reboot NAS or simply mount all unmounted disks (mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/HD_a2, sdb2 -> HD_b2, etc.)
11. Check result of hd_verify.

That's all. Quite easy

I had also some experiences with the installation of a new drive (Samsung F3 2TB HD203WI) into my DNS343 (2x HD103UJ 1TB and 2x HD154UI 1.5TB).

My plan was to replace the 1TB drive in slot 2. So I pulled the drives from slot 3&4 out and inserted the new 2TB in slot 2. Powered up, formatted the new drive in slot 2 and restarted the DNS343.
Silly but reality, both drives in slot 1&2 were formatted! (I had saved my data from slot 1, before I began)
The second bad thing was that the system shows me only Volume_1 available.

So I started again and formatted both drives in slot 1&2 completely. Then added my old 1.5TB drives in slot 3&4 and rebooted. Now the DNS343 wants to format the drives in slot 3&4 – I skipped!

With the informations from this post it was clear what to do ...
OK, but still after restart of my DNS343 only Volume_1 was available in the network.

Here is the solution for my problem. Both later inserted drives in slot3&4 were not correctly configured – missed in the configuration files.

You should check in the directory /mnt/HD_a4, b4, c4, d4 of each drive also the following files with this structure for non RAID configuration:

1. File "ChkSCSI"
SCSI0 1
SCSI1 2
SCSI2 3
SCSI3 4

2. File "dsk_mapping"
sda
sdb
sdc
sdd

3. File "raidtab2web"
status,0
filesystem,ext3
nonraid,sda2,sdb2,sdc2,sdd2
md0,null,null,null,null,null,null,null
md1,null,null,null,null,null,null,null
md2,null,null,null,null,null,null,null
md3,null,null,null,null,null,null,null


After a restart the Volume_1 - 4 were available and the DNS343 is not asking to format any drives - great!

This is the quickest and safest way (for me) to add a new drive to the DNS343 before I spend days of copying data from one to another storage.

Big Thanks to xatus!