Hey during my first attempt at configuring unraid I added my data drive to the array first thinking I'd then be able to transfer data to the other precleared drives once I'd added them -- a blunder I'm sure. After releasing this was stupid/not-possible I removed the drive from the array and temporarily installed it in my Windows PC again to transfer the files across the network -- however once installed in Windows it's showing at 100% free in the disk management tool.

 

Are my files erased or has something else less malicious occurred?

 

Note: I'm running 4.7 stable

It is possible to add a disk to your unRaid server and transfer it's contents to your array. But if you add a disk to an array, unRaid will clear the disk, erasing all content (unless the disk is already precleared).

Is it possible to recover the files that were cleared when I added the drive to the array?

Not if the disk was cleared.  Clearing writes binary zeros to every sector on the entire disk. All trace of prior content is lost.

 

Clearing takes hours to complete during which the array is not usable. Clearing also only occurs when adding a disk to an existing array - if the array configuration is new (all disk icons are blue) the disk will not be cleared.

 

Based on this info - are you sure the disk was cleared?

I'm not 100% certain either way but I don't believe the array was started for hours (I stopped it very quickly after I added it), nor did I notice any information on unmenu about a drive being cleared. However the beacon next to the drive was green and there is no NTFS partition on the drive.

The duration of the disk clearing depends on its size.

 

If the disk has a green icon and the unRaid GUI says parity says it is valid, the disk is precleared.

 

You added as a data disk, right? Not as cache?

If it was not cleared you need to use a windows recovery tool to recover the ntfs partition

 

Do you have a parity drive in your unraid server?

 

Despite it being a 2TB drive it does sound like it was cleared. I'll try a recovery tool to see if I can salvage anything but at this point I'm not too optimistic. I don't have a parity drive installed as of yet.