Yes, I believe it is referring to the bot drive and non of your data drives.
So long as you do not assign anything right now you should be fine.
Thanks so much for all of your help!
Well, made a 4.7 boot USB and carefully moved over my keys and the minimum number of necessary .cfg files along with the shares details. I get the same panic. I rebooted again and this time selected memory test instead of boot and got a whole bunch of errors. Looks like the memory on the mobo has somehow dynamically gone bad, or the motherboard is dying. Although it attempts to boot, etc. so I am not sure whether I just need to go get another motherboard or just invest in a new memory chips.
If I have to go to a new motherboard is there any secret in keeping the array in tact even if drives get put on different controllers, etc? Or does UnRAID figure it out every boot? Sorry, to be so 'dull' but this thing has run like a tank for over 6 years and I just haven't had to mess with it (which is FANTASTIC).