Failed Drive from a Sata Issue and now I can't replace the Drive

[Tim Button]

Hi, I have what I thought was a simple issue but its gotten Complicated.

Unraid 9.6.2 Server, Used for Plex. 5 Drives, all 10 TB. One Parity 4 media Drives. Fill Up method

 

I had a drive not fail, but the Sata cable broke in a way that it can't connect any more (broken teeth look). So I bought a new drive. I read up and watched some youtube videos, and booted up my unraid server. It now shows 2 drives with the red X, but one lists as missing, and the other unassigned. The missing drive Is the one I cannot connect, and it won't let me set any other value than the Drive that's broken.

 

Disk 1: Good

Disk 2: Unassigned with 2 drives listed My New one and one of the existing

Disk 3: Good

Disk 4: No Device

       Missing - Lists the Device that the sata port broke

 

Issue: Disk 4 will not accept any value except the missing drive that failed

 

How can I identify that I am adding a drive to replace a drive?

Does it matter that I put it back exactly as it was, because I never really looked to see if Disk 2 is one drive vs another?

[trurl]

Attach Diagnostics to your NEXT post in this thread 

[Tim Button]

Thanks, see attached file

buttonmedia2-diagnostics-20220210-1450.zip

[trurl]

Disk2 is the disabled disk, which means that is the disk it wants to replace and rebuild. But apparently you need it to replace and rebuild disk4 instead.

 

Do you know which disk was originally assigned as disk2?

[Tim Button]

Yes, the dead one that the cables broke and I can't re-attach.

 

 

[Tim Button]

The one listed under Missing

 

[Frank1940]

1 hour ago, Tim Button said:

Yes, the dead one that the cables broke and I can't re-attach.

 

Google the problem and see if there is not some way to get connections to the drive.  If you lack the technical skills, there probably is someone out there who will be able to do it for you.

 

(I would think that is almost certainly a way to take a SATA data cable, cut one end off and solder the wires to the remainder of the broken connector.  If it is the power cable, a similar repair procedure should be possible. )   

Edited February 11, 2022 by Frank1940

[trurl]

  

2 hours ago, trurl said:

Do you know which disk was originally assigned as disk2?

 

According to your first post and its screenshots, these replies are about disk4

1 hour ago, Tim Button said:

The one listed under Missing

1 hour ago, Tim Button said:

Yes, the dead one that the cables broke and I can't re-attach.

 

[Tim Button]

OK, so lets assume the drive is unrecoverable. The whole reason I set up Unraid with a parity drive is to avoid everything falling apart if one of the drives fails. Can I not just add a new Drive to Disk 5 and start avoiding Disk 4?

[Frank1940]

3 minutes ago, Tim Button said:

The whole reason I set up Unraid with a parity drive is to avoid everything falling apart if one of the drives fails.

 

BUT you have two drives that have now failed--  disk 2 and disk 4 -- as far as the Unraid OS is concerned.   You have potentially lost the data on two disks at this point!   Single parity can not recover from this situation!

[trurl]

OK. Let's forget about getting a clear answer to how you got here. Since you have single parity, it may be possible to recover the single broken drive, but all the other drives, and only those drives, that parity is currently synced with must be present and assigned to the array.

 

Since this is single parity, the order of the disks aren't important, so the below instructions should work regardless of how you assign the disks, provided you assign parity to the parity slot and all the other disks except for the broken one are present and assigned to the array.

1. Install a new disk.
2. Go to Tools - New Config, Retain All, Apply.
3. Make sure parity is assigned to the parity slot, all other disks assigned to a data slot, including the new disk.
4. Check BOTH Parity Valid box AND Maintenance mode box, and start the array. At this point, all disks will be accepted into the array just as they are.
5. Stop the array. Unassign the new disk. Start the array in normal mode (not Maintenance) with the new disk unassigned. At this point, the missing new disk will be emulated from the parity calculation by reading all other disks.

Then post new diagnostics so we can see if all the disks are mountable, including the emulated missing disk.

 

[Tim Button]

I wanted to circle back and let you know that this worked. All Drives are recognized and working. The Array is back to complete. It took longer than expected due to 2 factors: I travelled for a week and was unable to work on this, and I was generally being over cautious about these steps. 

 

Plex is all messed up but that's a minor problem. Drive recovery was the priority. Thanks so much for the help!

[trurl]

Glad to hear it. So after step 5 the emulated disk was mountable, then you rebuilt to the new disk? 

[Tim Button]

Yes, that worked for me. I did some cursory checks of the files on the recovered drive and it seems to all be there. I will continue to check things.

[Tim Button]

I have an issue with Docker and recovered Plex Server configs. Should I continue here or is that considered a new Issue?

[Frank1940]

Start a new thread and consider using the support thread for the Plex distribution that you are using.  (You should find a link to the support site as a option in the installed package.)