March 11, 20233 yr My flash drive failed, and after replacing it and recovering the backup config, my hard drives are shown as unassigned after the server boots, but the cache drives are assigned correctly. What did I miss when restoring config from backup? Details: 1. My original flash drive failed, and the server would not start the gui after booting. Logging in on the console and inspecting syslog revealed a substantial number of read and write errors on sda, so I determined the flash drive was toast and replaced it. 2. I obtained a new USB flash drive (Kingston DataTraveler Exodia, 32GB, USB 3.2). The USB creator tool would not populate this flash drive, so I followed the manual method. I'm still on 6.9.2 ad I used my 6.9.2 server zip to install the software on the flash drive. 3. I copied my config folder from my latest backup (last night) to the flash drive. 4. I booted the server off the new flash drive. It came up to the GUI on the Main page, and the registration key warning was displayed. 5. I followed the procedure to get and install a new key. The server accepted the new key and the registration shows as: Registered on: Friday, 2023-03-10, 20:08 6. Now the Main page shows all array devices as unassigned. Cache devices are assigned and look fine. The array start button is greyed out with the note "No array data disks have been assigned!" 7. The Unassigned Devices list is showing 4 disks. One is expected. The other 3 appear to be the array drives that should be listed in the array device list. 8. The DISK_ASSIGNMENTS.txt (copied below) file in my config folder from the backup lists the disks as I expect them, but the GUI doesn't match. 9. The list of config files in /boot/config matches the files in the backup copy. The current /boot/config doesn't appear to be missing anything. What might I be missing that would prevent the server from remembering the array disk assignments? Is it safe to re-assign the disks according to DISK_ASSIGNMENTS.txt? I'm grateful for any guidance you may offer! Here is DISK_ASSIGNMENTS.txt off the current flash drive: Quote root@chip-un:/boot/config# cat DISK_ASSIGNMENTS.txt Disk Assignments Disk: parity Device: ST2000DM008-2FR102_ZK303HMX Status: DISK_OK Disk: disk1 Device: ST2000DM008-2FR102_ZK303WW3 Status: DISK_OK Disk: disk2 Device: ST2000DM008-2FR102_ZK303W8H Status: DISK_OK Disk: disk3 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk4 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk5 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk6 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk7 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk8 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk9 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk10 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk11 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk12 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk13 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk14 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk15 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk16 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk17 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk18 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk19 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk20 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk21 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk22 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: parity2 Device: Status: DISK_NP_DSBL Disk: cache Device: WDC_WDS100T2B0C-00PXH0_2043F7807008 Status: DISK_OK Disk: cache2 Device: CT1000MX500SSD1_2045E4C5FFA3 Status: DISK_OK Disk: cache3 Device: WDC_WDS100T2B0A-00SM50_203696802792 Status: DISK_OK Disk: flash Device: USB2FlashStorage Status: DISK_OK Edited March 12, 20233 yr by MrChip Mark solved
March 11, 20233 yr Community Expert Get screen captures of the Main tab showing the disk listings for the Array, cache and Unassigned Devices.
March 11, 20233 yr Community Expert 6 hours ago, MrChip said: Is it safe to re-assign the disks according to DISK_ASSIGNMENTS.txt? Yes if they are up to date, parity looks correct, but you have an extra 8TB disk, or was that unassigned?
March 11, 20233 yr Author 6 hours ago, JorgeB said: Yes if they are up to date, parity looks correct, but you have an extra 8TB disk, or was that unassigned? They were up to date when the flash drive failed. I'd seen nothing to make me think there was any parity issues prior to then. Can I validate that outside of reassigning them and running a parity check on the assigned array? The 8TB disk is not part of the array or cache. It is always unassigned.
March 11, 20233 yr Author In the GUI I've now assigned the disks according to the DISK_ASSIGNMENTS.txt file in /boot/config - see screen capture below. (This file matches what I have in multiple backup copies, so I believe it's correct.) I believe the parity "should" be fine, but I am seeing a notice that a Parity Sync will be done (not parity check), implying that Unraid doesn't think that there is valid parity. There is a check box to say parity is already valid. And one to enter maintenance mode. I'm inclined check both boxes and run a parity check on the array with the disks unmounted. Is that sane and reasonable? BUT ... BUT ... The array is already encrypted, AND the disk assignment list has icons on both Disk 1 and 2 that indicate the devices will be encrypted. There is also a prompt to enter a new encryption key, not an existing key, to start the array. Encrypting already encrypted disks sounds like a very bad idea to me. So now I'm not inclined to start the array. Any chance Unraid will discover that the disks are already encrypted and not re-encrypt them? Or can I tell it that somehow? I am well backed up, so I can recover from data loss on the array. Here is DISK_ASSIGNMENTS.txt again: Quote Disk Assignments Disk: parity Device: ST2000DM008-2FR102_ZK303HMX Status: DISK_OK Disk: disk1 Device: ST2000DM008-2FR102_ZK303WW3 Status: DISK_OK Disk: disk2 Device: ST2000DM008-2FR102_ZK303W8H Status: DISK_OK Disk: disk3 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk4 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk5 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk6 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk7 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk8 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk9 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk10 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk11 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk12 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk13 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk14 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk15 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk16 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk17 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk18 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk19 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk20 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk21 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: disk22 Device: Status: DISK_NP Disk: parity2 Device: Status: DISK_NP_DSBL Disk: cache Device: WDC_WDS100T2B0C-00PXH0_2043F7807008 Status: DISK_OK Disk: cache2 Device: CT1000MX500SSD1_2045E4C5FFA3 Status: DISK_OK Disk: cache3 Device: WDC_WDS100T2B0A-00SM50_203696802792 Status: DISK_OK Disk: flash Device: USB2FlashStorage Status: DISK_OK
March 11, 20233 yr Author Interesting .... When I unassign the disks again, Unassigned Devices appears to figure out that they are encrypted. But Unraid still thinks that those device slots are to be encrypted.
March 12, 20233 yr Author Solution Okay !!WHEW!! -- Solved! When I did the right search, I discovered super.dat. For those who may have this problem and discover this post in the future, super.dat is where the array configuration is stored. But it's not backed up under that name when I do a flash backup. Rather it's copied to super.dat.CA_BACKUP. When I recreated my flash drive and restored my config directory from my flash backup, I needed to copy super.dat.CA_BACKUP back to super.dat. When I didn't do that, a new, empty super.dat was created which had no array configuration in it. So this is why my disks were not showing in the array , but in the Unassigned Devices list. I shutdown the server, put the flash drive into my PC and copied super.dat.CA_BACKUP back to super.dat, then rebooted the server (with the flash drive, of course). And it all came up with the disks in the right place. I started the array in maintenance mode, and the array came up and everything is fine. It's reporting the parity is valid, without a parity check. (I'm a bit paranoid, though, so I think I'll do a parity check anyway.) So I now have my server back and a much better understanding of what to do to replace a faulty flash drive when one of my other Unraid servers has it's flash drive fail.
May 22, 20251 yr This issue is still prevalent today. Thankfully, my old flash was not completely dead, it was failing so i was able to copy the super.dat from that. I downloaded the flash backup from Unraid.net flash backup so super.dat was not suffixed with super.dat.CA_BACKUP however, one of my drives was missing so I copied the super.dat from my failing flash and it showed up.
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