can I manually zip a USB flash drive?

[NickG]

Hello,

 

I know unRAID has a zip utility to backup your flash drive, then you can run USB Creator to take that zip file and build another new flash drive if the original drive fails.  If I don't have access to this function, but I still have the flash drive, can I save the flash drive contents onto a computer and use a zip program to zip it manually, then build a new flash drive from that .zip file?  Does the zip utility within unRAID do anything special that would cause this to not work?

 

If what I'm suggesting doesn't work, is my only option to use the manual mode?

[trurl]

You don't really even need a zip file of your flash. You can create a new install with a download of whatever version you want, and then just copy the config folder from your backup. The config folder has everything about your configuration.

[gnickdog]

Nice - I will try that tonight and report back!

[NickG]

Well I'm able to boot up into a fresh install of unraid on a new flash drive, and it boots up. If I take my old config file and copy it in to the new flash drive, it won't boot into the web GUI. So I'm thinking something is messed up with my old config file. Where should I start looking?  I believe the source of this config error is that the old USB drive that last worked properly was on a Gigabyte board and I'm switching over to a Supermicro board.  I initially thought the USB may have been bad but my brand new USB exhibits the same behavior.

[Frank1940]

Here is a list of the files on the Flash Drive:

 

    https://wiki.unraid.net/Files_on_v6_boot_drive

 

One file you might want to use from the download version of the current operating system is the   go     file.  

 

One more recommendation is connect a monitor to the MB and watch the boot process.  If it hangs during the boot process, take a photograph of it.  Make sure that the text is easily readable and then post that photo up in a new post.     

[NickG]

Thanks for the recommendations. I have a monitor hooked up and have been watching the boot process. It seems to boot up just fine, but I can't get to the GUI and I can't get to the shares/mapped drives from windows on a different computer. I've attached the last screen image. I can log in on this screen. I took a couple of more shots I can attach if they would help. 

[NickG]

To be clear, this isn't a flash drive issue.  My original flash drive is acting the same way as the new one.  The problem started when I pulled my working gigabyte MB out and installed a Supermicro board.  Before I did this I downloaded a trial key and installed it into the Supermicro board with one hard drive to make sure all the new hardware worked (CPU, RAM, fans, etc).  I had Unraid running, a Windows 10 VM running and everything worked great.  I installed a new copy of Unraid using USB creator onto this test flash drive, copied the config file over, and switched out the motherboards and this is where I am now.  I've had to tinker in the BIOS a bit (booting up in legacy) but I don't see how that is causing me to not be able to see the web GUI. 

[itimpi]

We’re you passing any hardware through to the VM?    If so then did you remember to remove at vfio mapping as device ID’s are almost certain to change when changing motherboard?

 

can you log in at the console?   If so do it and use the ‘df’ command to see if you can see something mounted at /boot (should be your flash drive).  If so try the ‘diagnostics’ command and the resulting zip file will get put into the ‘logs’ folder on the flash drive.

[NickG]

Well I'm an idiot - this motherboard has 2 ethernet ports and I plugged the cable into the other one and it all worked.  I realized the config defines what port to use, Ethernet 0, Ethernet 1, etc, and I was plugged into the wrong one.  I've been testing all the different features and messing with settings, everything seems to be working fine.  I even plugged in the previous USB (that I hadn't de-registered yet) and it worked, no changes needed.  I will probably decommision it here shortly once I prove everything is up and running appropriately.

 

I did need to update the VM template with the passed through devices but they seem to all be working properly (GPU, multiple USB devices).  Thank you all for your help!  Lesson learned on this one is if you have a board with multiple ethernet ports they are not interchangeable as far as unRaid is concerned.