So a couple of nights ago lightning struck just outside of my house.  I didn't realize until the next morning but there were several casualties.  I lost my cable modem (which Spectrum replaced for free) two monoprice 8 port switches, a 4x hdmi switch and my relatively old but previously bulletproof unraid server which would no longer turn on.  I ordered a replacement power supply to see if I could get it going again but alas, no dice.  I had upgraded the CPU a little while back (from a Pentium G630t to a Core i5 3475S) so I tried popping the old CPU back in but again, no power at all.  My motherboard was an ASROCK H77 Pro4/MVP and I had 8-9 drives of various capacities (4tb parity, 2x4tb, 3x2tb, and 2x1tb) with a 500gb cache drive.  I used it primarily for Plex and sabnzb and it served my purposes just fine.

 

At this stage I'm inclined to start from scratch maybe re-using at least the 4tb drives though after the lightning strike I don't know how trustworthy they'd be (if they still work at all).  

 

I hadn't planned on starting over and don't have much of a budget, but at this stage I don't think I can afford to get all of the modern bells and whistles.

 

My gaming rig, which is long overdue for an upgrade itself is an i74490k but it too was exposed to the lightning (though it seems to be operating normally at the moment).  

 

I'd love some recommendations for moving forward.  Any and all advice would be appreciated.

...sorry for your loss.

As you are on a budget, first step would be to confirm if the disks are still OK.

Do you have backups already? As each data disk is individually formatted, you

• could check, if these will still work (via your gaming Rig).
• make a backup
• optional, perform a pre-clear on them, prior to commission them for re-use in your newly build system (remember to back-up first).

if a new PSU did not help and as that gear is fairly old,  I suggest to buy a new set or a used one from a reputable seller....unless you could test part by part, with gear borrowed from a friend.

Build with 8-9 drives plus Cache means, you also did have a HBA deployed or a second SATA card? Do you have a spare for that if it has been hit as well?

Edited November 2, 20214 yr by Ford Prefect

1 hour ago, Ford Prefect said:

Do you have backups already? As each data disk is individually formatted

Before you do anything with those disks, you might just wait until you get your new Unraid build ready. If the flash still works, you should be able to boot up and if those disks are good it will use them just as they are with all of their data.

 

Or you could boot up a linux distro and see if it can read them. Unlikely that your gaming rig will be able to since it probably doesn't work with Unraid filesystems.

 

56 minutes ago, trurl said:

Or you could boot up a linux distro and see if it can read them. Unlikely that your gaming rig will be able to since it probably doesn't work with Unraid filesystems.

Yes, either a Linux-LIVE Distro or even your unraid stick, when booting your Rig and checking parts....did forget to mention that

Update Time:

 

I took a chance that the motherboard had a dying capacitor or something causing it to fail due to the extra voltage and I ordered a replacement motherboard from eBay and crossed my fingers that nothing else (including the CPU) was damaged. The new board was an Asus h77. It had 6 sata ports rather than 8 but fortunately I had a second pcie sata controller. Once I confirmed that the new board was working I plugged in my hard drives and my unRAID USB and viola... My server is back up as if nothing happened!  Parity check is running now but so far so good.  Fingers crossed that this thing will limp along until the chip shortage ends and I build a new gaming rig and donate my old one for building a replacement unRAID server. 

Parity check passed. Everything looks ok. Sooo relieved.