[SOLVED] Corrupted USB after tranfering license... Request another transfer to a new USB or other options available?

[death.hilarious]

My Unraid server was having issues with plugins not being able to update. I thought I'd just reboot it and hope it fixed the problem. Unfortunately, after rebooting the server wouldn't start at all--headless system, no Web GUI, no SSH. Now I actually needed some files from the server urgently, so I'm panicking. After reading up in the forums, it seems like it might just be an issue with the boot USB, and sure enough when I pull the USB and plug it into another computer it's full of FSCKxxxx.REC files in the root directory. I was able to copy the contents of the config directory over and prepared a new USB.

 

Formatting a new USB using the USB creation tool took hours because of the bug causing it to get stuck in "syncing file system...". So I ended up trying tons of different sticks in different ports, until I stumbled on the forum solution of changing the drive name manually to "UNRAID" while it's stuck in "syncing file system". Ugh.

 

Unfortunately, because of this bug I was just happy that I got the USB creation to work and wasn't worrying about the fact that the USB stick I was using when I finally got it to work was kind of jenky. I transferred the config from the old stick to the new stick and boot the server. I'm overjoyed that everything seems to be working fine. I can update plugins again. I go ahead and click the button to transfer the license to this new USB stick.

 

Then I reboot the system and to bring the array online... and it doesn't start. F*ck my life. The Web UI just won't start. I'm able to SSH in and from what I can tell the USB thinks it's full and isn't able to create the file system. I get an insufficient space error running the diagnostics command. So I play around some more. I make a backup of the config directory from the jenky USB and re-run the USB creation tool on it. I can get the server to boot from the freshly created USB, but when I transfer the config directory to it, it won't boot and has the same insufficient space problem.

 

Now I create a third USB with the creation tool and transfer the backup config from the second jenky USB to this new third stick... and everything works! But I have to wait a year until I can transfer the license to a new USB? I've requested a transfer to a new USB from support, but it seems like it'll take a few days at least--and I still urgently need those files.

 

So my questions:

 

1. Does anyone have any ideas what's causing the insufficient space problem on my USB, other than the USB is just jenky? I don't want the same thing to start happening to this third USB.
2. Is there any thing I should try to make the current jenky USB work while I'm waiting to transfer the license to a new USB?

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by death.hilarious

[JonathanM]

Try preparing the currently licensed stick using RUFUS.

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/79732-unable-to-boot-to-usb/?do=findComment&comment=740522

 

[death.hilarious]

13 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

Try preparing the currently licensed stick using RUFUS.

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/79732-unable-to-boot-to-usb/?do=findComment&comment=740522

 

Thanks. I'll try that. What should I choose for the boot selection?

[JonathanM]

Just now, death.hilarious said:

What should I choose for the boot selection?

Non bootable should work, we are trying to get the best possible blank slate for the USB creator tool to work on.

[death.hilarious]

Thanks for the help @jonathanm!

 

I used RUFUS to do a proper full write format as well as a bad sector check on the USB. I then re-made the USB drive using the USB creator and copied over the config backup... and ran into the exact same problem as before. I was so sure it was going to work.

 

I finally gave in and hooked up a video card, keyboard, monitor and booted in safe mode (with plugins disabled) and it worked fine. Turns out that my cache drive had dropped and been un-assigned from the array probably because of cable jiggling and without the cache one of the plugins (unbalance? unassigned devices? swap file?) was screwing everything up during start up. Re-assigning the cache (while in safe mode), starting the array and then rebooting did the trick.