Recently one of my data drives has failed. Since then I cannot start the array because of error: Too many wrong and/or missing disks! 

 

I have a bigger replacement drive available, even bigger than parity drive. So I want to do the parity swap procedure. https://wiki.unraid.net/The_parity_swap_procedure

 

In step 3 of the procedure: Start the array (put a check in the Yes I want to do this checkbox if it appears (older versions: Yes, I'm sure))

Yes, you need to do this. Your data drive should be showing as Not installed.

 

But I cannot start my array as mentioned before. So the failed drive is showing as Missing, not as Not Installed. 

 

If I skip step 3 in de procedure, there's a problem with step 13: 

Go to the Main -> Array Operation section

You should now have a Copy button, with a statement indicating "Copy will copy the parity information to the new parity disk".

 

There is no Copy button. 

 

I'm a bit lost. Hope someone can put me in the right direction. 

Not clear exactly what you have done.    Since you have a failed drive then you effectively start at step 9.

1 hour ago, itimpi said:

Not clear exactly what you have done.    Since you have a failed drive then you effectively start at step 9.

Yes, I did that. Unassign the old parity drive, assign the new parity drive as the parity drive and assign the old parity drive as new data drive. 

 

The manual says there should be a "Copy button, with a statement indicating "Copy will copy the parity information to the new parity disk"."

But there is no "Copy" button..

Edited April 2, 20224 yr by Gristev

Please post the diagnostics and a screenshot of the main GUI page.

2 hours ago, JorgeB said:

Please post the diagnostics and a screenshot of the main GUI page.

 

Not sure what is needed in diagnostics, so posted the entire zip and a screenhot of the main GUI page. Disk 1 is the failed drive. The unassigned drives are a new data and parity drive that I wish to use. 

 

 

 

nas-diagnostics-20220403-1357.zip

That screenshot shows 2 drives missing or failed but only single parity so Unraid cannot do the parity swap.

On 4/3/2022 at 2:27 PM, itimpi said:

That screenshot shows 2 drives missing or failed but only single parity so Unraid cannot do the parity swap.

Disk 3 is unassigned, not missing, right? I accidentally assigned a drive but unassigned it, so it hasn't failed..

 

Or am I fried because of this? Hope there is a solution without data loss..

10 minutes ago, Gristev said:

Disk 3 is unassigned, not missing, right? I accidentally assigned a drive but unassigned it, so it hasn't failed..

That was not sufficient to stop Unraid acting as if it was present    Unraid would have been emulating the disk it thought should be there and you would be running with the array unprotected since you only have single parity.

 

At this point your only chance of recovering your data is if the ‘failed’.drive has not physically failed but was marked as disabled for some other reason.   If that is the case then you can probably get data off it.   If it HAS failed then you will have lost its contents unless you can get them back from your backups.

 

 

Aii, that doesnt look to good then.. thanks for helping out! It's not that disk I'm worried about because it was empty. It's the failed disk 1.

 

Maybe another approach could help me out to recover disk 1?

1 minute ago, Gristev said:

It's the failed disk 1.

I know, but Unraid will not be able to do any recovery because as far as it is concerned you have 2 disks failed (it is treating the unassigned disk as failed).   As I said your only chance is whether you can do any sort of recovery on disk1 outside Unraid.

I should have sorted out that issue of the unassigned drive earlier.. Didn't think it would a problem. Learned this the hard way 😉

 

Thanks again for helping out.

 

Let's say I could do some kind of recovery to a new drive (don't think it will work). Should I then assign the new drive to Disk 1?

Edited April 4, 20224 yr by Gristev
spelling

6 minutes ago, Gristev said:

I should have sorted out that issue of the unassigned drive earlier.. Didn't think it would a problem. Learned this the hard way 😉

 

Thanks again for helping out.

 

Let's say I could do some kind of recovery to a new drive (don't think it will work). Shpuld I then assign the new drive to Disk 1?

 

At this point I would suggest you use the New Config tool and use it to set up the array without disk1 or disk3, and build new parity based on those drives.    You could also take the opportunity to add another drive at this point if you so desire (perhaps to hold any data you can recover from disk1).   At that point you would have the array in a protected state, albeit without the data from the ‘failed’ disk1.

 

in terms of recovering data off disk1 then I suggest trying disk recovery software such as UFS Explorer on Windows to see if it can recognise any data on the old disk1.   UFS Explorer is not free but you only have to pay for it if you want to actually recover data - not if simply scanning the drive to see if it will be able to recover any data on the paid-for version.    There may be other free tools that can also do this, but UFS Explorer is the only one I have personal experience of (and have paid for).   However if the drive really has physically failed then such software will not be able to do anything with it.

 

You may want to wait a while to see if anyone else chimes in with some way forward that I have not thought off.

 

On 4/4/2022 at 9:38 PM, itimpi said:

 

At this point I would suggest you use the New Config tool and use it to set up the array without disk1 or disk3, and build new parity based on those drives.    You could also take the opportunity to add another drive at this point if you so desire (perhaps to hold any data you can recover from disk1).   At that point you would have the array in a protected state, albeit without the data from the ‘failed’ disk1.

 

in terms of recovering data off disk1 then I suggest trying disk recovery software such as UFS Explorer on Windows to see if it can recognise any data on the old disk1.   UFS Explorer is not free but you only have to pay for it if you want to actually recover data - not if simply scanning the drive to see if it will be able to recover any data on the paid-for version.    There may be other free tools that can also do this, but UFS Explorer is the only one I have personal experience of (and have paid for).   However if the drive really has physically failed then such software will not be able to do anything with it.

 

You may want to wait a while to see if anyone else chimes in with some way forward that I have not thought off.

 

 

Thanks again. You were very helpful! 

 

After tingling around for hours I managed to get Drive 1 to work again, I had to connect the disk upside down and with some duck tape to connect the power connector. It's not stupid if it works right? 😏 (The entire plastic casing around the power connector is gone because I dropped it long time ago while connected.. Not recommended)

 

I started a new config as you advised, with the 'old' data drive connected and the bigger (18TB) as parity drive. After about 32 hours it completed! 

 

It was a hard lesson to learn not to have unnassigned drives in my setup and to solve this in the setup before other problems arise. I never thought this would be a problem with only 1 parity drive. Now I now better.