USB - Support

[Chris09]

Good Day all,

 

I have a quick question, about a year and a half ago I purchased a usb key for unraid, and I had  to disconnect my server for a bit and lost the usb key. I then found it, but I realized too late that the usb was formatted into something else and then was destroyed by my vacuum. Is there a way for me to get it replaced or do I have to purchase it again? Sadly I never made a backup of it, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

[JonathanM]

Do you still have the email with your key file?

[Chris09]

3 hours ago, jonathanm said:

Do you still have the email with your key file?

Sadly, I do not

[JonathanM]

Email support with the email address and approximate date of purchase and they will take care of you.

[Chris09]

2 hours ago, jonathanm said:

Email support with the email address and approximate date of purchase and they will take care of you.

Can you point me in the right direction for that? I’m still trying to figure out this site via mobile lol

[JonathanM]

https://unraid.net/contact

[Chris09]

On 3/29/2021 at 6:52 AM, jonathanm said:

https://unraid.net/contact

Thank You

[Gladio]

I have the same problem but  I do have the key file - after creating a new usb-key - I dont remember exactly which of my disks are parity disks and which are data disks? How can I figure out, which disks are my data disks?

Is it possible to rescue my data from them, before creating a new disk array?

Thank you in advance

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Gladio

[itimpi]

3 minutes ago, Gladio said:

I have the same problem but  I do have the key file - after creating a new usb-key - I dont remember exactly which of my disks are parity disks and which are data disks? How can I fgure out, which disks are my data disks?

Is it possible to rescue my data from them, before creating a new disk array?

Thank you in advance

 

The standard answer to this is to start by assigning ALL disks as data disks and then starting the array.   Parity disk(s) have no file system and will always show up as unmountable.   As long as the number of unmountable disks is equal to the number of parity disks you had then you have identified the parity disk.  At this point make a note of the serial numbers and you can then use Tools->Jew Config to get back to the point of assigning disks to the array and this  time you can set up the correct parity disk.

 

Is that simple approach does not work ask again for advice on how to proceed.

 

[Gladio]

Thanks for this advice - I did identify my Parity devices - Now I am in the state, that all disks are assigned.

If I change my parity disks (in the below sections) to no device and put them into the parity section.

 

The answer is: "To many wrong and/or missing disks" (see error1.png)

 

so doing a "Tools->New Config" (new-config.png) - I think I will not presserve anything - so None

I seems, that the new-config will not work.

 

Also after an reboot (see after-reboot)

 

Thank you very much for your help.

 

 

[itimpi]

Tools -> New Config WILL work. From your screen shot you seem to not have set the slots that had parity drives to "unassigned" (and possibly shuffled up the data drives)?

 

I prefer to use the option to preserve current assignments as it means you have less changes to make when you return to the Main tab to correct any drive assignments to their final settings to there is less chance of making an error.   It puts the array back into a state where no drives are yet committed to the array and you can make changes before starting the array to commit the changes.  At this point you want to unassign the parity drive(s) from being a data drive and assign the it to the parity slot.

 

Now when you start the array parity is rebuilt based on the current assignments.

 

It is important that you do not assign a data drive to a parity slot as that would result in its contents being lost as they get overwritten with parity information.

[trurl]

Just thought I would add this to the thread.

 

You must always keep a current backup of flash. You can easily download a zipped backup of flash at Main - Boot Device - Flash - Flash Backup

[Gladio]

Unfortunately - on my system - this do not work 😞  - maybe - wrong finger on keyboard error

BUT - The following procedure has worked: ATTENTION - This procedure can be dangorous, so I will describe in very detail to prevent problems:

problem situation:
My USB was accidentially physically broken and I did not had a backup of my USB-Stick, but I do have the URL of my key-file:

Solution:
deletion of the usb-key and reformat - If you can backup the /boot/config directory - please do

Recreate the USB-stick with the unraid tools (see documentation / Installation proceure

Reboot

After Reboot with the new created USB-stick all of your disks with be in the new/unassigned state

If you don't know which disks are your parity disks and which disks are your data disks - please do the following:

start your array with all disks in maintanance mode

figure out which disk ist your usb-stick - mostly /dev/sda

try to mount all disks like this:

mkdir /mnt/d1 /mnt/d2 /mnt/d3 /mnt/d4 /mnt/d5 /mnt/d6

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/d1

mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/d2

mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt/d3

mount /dev/sde1 /mnt/d4

mount /dev/sdf1 /mnt/d5

mount /dev/sdg1 /mnt/d6

On my system there where two disks not mountable (/dev/sdb and /dev/sdg - means device 1 and device 6)) the following error should occure

Quote

 mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/d2
 mount: /mnt/d2: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.

If any other error appears - you may have an disk failure or a power failure - please recheck

Have a very very close look - if you are able to see all of your data under /mnt/d1 ... /mnt/d6

if you found all of your data - very good

If you are still missing a data disk - It seems to be a power failure - check in BIOS - if all disks are appearing

Then stop maintanance mode

assign the data disks (mount was possible) to data disks and the parity disks (mount was not possible) to parity disks. After that you must not have more parity disks than before.

ATTENTION! Please recheck three times, that you have assigne everything correctly. The disks, which you did assign to parity willl completely been erased and are not more recoverable then - ATTANTION!

 

If you are not 100.00% sure - backup your data from your data disks to a second location!

 

If you are 100.00% sure, that everything is correct - start array in normal mode - Depending on, what you did try before - a parity check will be made or not.

While this parity check is running - in summer or so - the disks will get more hot than normal. Please be prepared.

 

Docker Container and VMs should stay on data disks and should not has been touched by a broken usb-stick.

 

What I will do better next time:

• Making a screen shot of my disks configuration (click on main) - so next time I will know which disks are data and which on are parity
  Nevertheless - I will try to check the mountable state of disks - so I do have no other error
• I will systematicly backup the directory /boot/config from my usb-stick (or the whole USB-stick)

conclusion:

I am very expirienced with raid systems (RAID 1/ RAID 5 / RAID 6 / RAID 10 / RAID 16 ...) where I did have many many problems with.

UNRAID seems to be a very very robust system - If you do not destroy data - Unraid also will not and you will have a very high chance to recover data in an emergency case.

 

Thanks to 911 for your help - this bring me down from panic mode to thinking mode.

 

[trurl]

13 minutes ago, Gladio said:

If you can backup the /boot/config directory - please do

The config folder contains disk assignments and everything else about your configuration, so if you have that backed up you won't be in a situation where Unraid doesn't know what your disk assignments were.

 

13 minutes ago, Gladio said:

Docker Container and VMs should stay on data disks and should not has been touched by a broken usb-stick.

While it is true that your dockers and their appdata are on your disks, the docker templates required to work with your dockers in the webUI are on flash in the config folder. Without those templates you won't be able to work with your dockers in the webUI.

 

9 minutes ago, Gladio said:

Unfortunately - on my system - this do not work 😞  - maybe - wrong finger on keyboard error

No idea what your problem was.

 

Instead of that more complicated (and potentially error-prone) procedure, I suggest everyone just work in the webUI and follow the procedure of assigning all disks as data and none as parity so you can identify the unmountable parity disks as explained before.

[Chris09]

1 hour ago, trurl said:

Just thought I would add this to the thread.

 

You must always keep a current backup of flash. You can easily download a zipped backup of flash at Main - Boot Device - Flash - Flash Backup

Will do when I get a response from Support. I’ll have to get into a habit to making periodic saves since I like to move my drives.

[trurl]

Any change you make in the webUI that you don't want to potentially lose should be followed by a new backup. It is especially important to take a new backup if you make any disk assignment changes.

[trurl]

Also, see here for another way to backup flash: