Hey All:

I currently have (2) EX49x servers on my work bench waiting to be brought into production into my home (long story) to replace an aging EX475 server that has served me well over the years.

I picked up (2) WD 10EADS (1tb) hard drives on the cheap that I was going to use to facilitate in the migration. These drives appear to have issues talking with any of the servers, and I have no idea why - Based on forum searches, many user are able to utilize this drive in their storage pool and/or as a system drive.

These drives are used, and from my research are some of the "origina" WD Green WD10EADS drives that utilize a 3 platter design versus the later 2 platter design. The drives were checked in my desktop for SMART ERRORS (passed), surface/sector defects (none found) and are able to be used in my desktop computer.

Based on research, these are NOT advanced format drives, but I have tried all jumper configurations to restrict speed (1.5 versus 3), etc. per WD white papers, and those did not resolve the problem.

I've attempted to add them to the server by formatting them on my host system (fresh NTFS partition), removing all the partitions (virgin drive), as well as cloning a donor EX49x system drive sector by sector, then adding them as the system drive, also attempted to perform a server recovery using one as the host drive, and it never works.

Ultimately, trying to restore as a system drive fails every time, and when cloning an existing (freshly restored) system drive, the server still won't boot. When attempting to add to the storage pool, I get the error as indicated in the screenshots below. When the drive is inserted (1tb) it will show the under drive management as 'ted0f222RAID" having a size of 1.82tb. These drives are ONLY 1tb, and the screenshots indicate when only ONE of the WD10EADS drives are inserted.

I get this same problem trying to use EITHER of the WD10EADS drives, whether on either of the EX49X servers, or my EX475 server, which is known to NOT have ANY issues with the drive bays/sleds. When attempting to add to my EX475 via the Sans Digital TR8U expansion bay, the same problem exists.

When the drive is inserted into the server, the server will also hang/freeze when attempting to access "disk management" via administrator tools. If the drive is removed, disk management instantly opens.

I'm at witts end with this, and really have no idea what's going on - any help would be GREATLY appreciated! I'm an advanced PC user, so I am willing to try anything!

Well from your screen shot I see something else odd.
Your system drive appears as external(ATA)
where normally it should appear as
Internal(ATA)

But anyway possibly somebody has played games with the drive.
If you are hell bent on using used drives from somebody else.
Call Ted and ask him what he did to them if you can.
ted0f222RAID is not a stock id of the drive it should be like the part umber of the drive,
I would download the wd utility and really wipe it meaning writing zeros to the drive and every other option they have,
My 2 cents, give up and buy new drives and find out why the system drive shows incorrectly.
Like start from scratch with a full reset on the os.

BTW,
I have two eads as pool drives with no jumpers and no issues at all.
They are not advanced drives,

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You can start with this link.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/det ... hqbA%3D%3D

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I'm looking at a WD10EADS drive right now that is an advanced format drive but the label specifies it as such, so don't depend on any docs to tell you it isn't. I would go into a command prompt and kill all partitions and then reformat it. Just to make sure it isn't formated in such a way as to make it not usable in normal windows operation.

_________________
HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server

Humm,
Are you sure it is a eads and not a ears.
I have two
wd20eads with no jumpers or alignment for several years and they are fine.
In fact if you search here you will find the eads are okay to use without modification.
It was when the ears came out that AF became a issue.
Of course they are legacy drives now.
Maybe you have one that was a last batch that converted over to af before the ears started.

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No, it's definitely an EADS drive. I must add that I have 2 of them that are advanced format drives and the others I have are normal format drives. The point I was making is, that if the drives were used drives, you can't depend on them being anything the net documentation says they are and you have no idea how they were originally formated. In that case you must use a command line execute DISKPART to delete the partitions and then windows can format it correctly.

_________________
HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server

Hey all, thanks for the input so far. To clarify, they are definitely WD10EADS drives. Per WD documentation and serial # writeup, they are NOT advanced format drives. Testing the theory, I had attempted to format them with the WD/Acronis aignment (adf) tool, which doesn't recognize them being ADF either. They were manufactured mid-2009 and were some of the initial "green" drives, which were a 3 platter design vs. the 2.

I've tried diskpart, DD via Linux, as well as writing "0"s to the drive - same effect.

Being this is occuring with (3) different WHS and (2) different WD10EADS (same manuf. date), I'm hard pressed to figure out what it is. They do work perfectly fine in my desktop computer and I've tested them each with various tools, as well as transferring well over 100tb to and from each drive.

Any thoughts? Wonder why it's coming up as the weird descriptor, and showing as 1.82tb. Almost seems like it's trying to assign a raid volume to it.

Did you delete the partition and clean the drive with diskpart, not just try to format. It looks like they were formated as raid disks at one time in a non-windows environment and without cleaning they will not format or operate correctly.

edit:They also could have been formatted as dynamic disks, in which case you have to convert them back to basic disks.

_________________
HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server

erail: Thanks for your recommendations! DISKPART did the trick, rather nicely! It also resolved the other member's concern of the "external ATA" indicator for the primary drive, that is also now resolved.

I'm uncertain why DD and a sector by sector clone of the primary (OS) drive didn't resolve the issue, but nonetheless, thank you very very much!

For future reference: HDD hooked up to a host system, command prompt, diskpart, select correct drive, clean and then clean all. CLEAN ALL may be overkill, but it is what it is!

Yep,
Diskpart is another method to write zeros to this disk just like the wd utility does.

clean [all]

Use the clean command to remove partition or volume formatting from the current in-focus disk by zeroing sectors. By default, only the MBR or GPT partitioning information and any hidden sector information on MBR disks is overwritten. If you specify the all parameter, each and every sector can be zeroed, and all data that is contained on the drive can be deleted.

_________________
VGA/PS2 Keyboard/PS2 Mouse/Serial debug board
Popcorn C-200
Popcorn A-200
Dune HD Connect
Rasberry PI OSMC(KODI)
ReadyNAS RN316
Amazon FireStick
Amazon ECHO
AnyDvD
MyMovies