December 22, 20232 yr Hello everyone, The other day I noticed on my backup system that a hard disk was showing errors. After a restart, the hard disk was shown as ready for formatting. Today I replaced the hard disk and the parity recovery started. Now the log shows me dozens of errors and a speed of less than 1 MB/s when restoring. And I think the disk I replaced has lot more free space than the disk before. Is there anything left to recover or what is the best way to proceed? I still have the old disk. Thank you! backup-diagnostics-20231222-1346.zip Edited December 22, 20232 yr by aurevo
December 22, 20232 yr Community Expert You are getting continual resets on the parity drive. It looks like it could just be an issue with the power and/or SATA cabling to that drive so it could be worth checking that and retrying the rebuild.
December 22, 20232 yr Community Expert 40 minutes ago, aurevo said: After a restart, the hard disk was shown as ready for formatting. Did you format? If so, that would explain 40 minutes ago, aurevo said: the disk I replaced has lot more free space since after format it would be an empty filesystem.
December 22, 20232 yr Community Expert 42 minutes ago, aurevo said: I still have the old disk Was the "ready for formatting" disk disabled? If so, them perhaps you only formatted the emulated disk and then rebuilt that. So maybe the original disk still has its data.
December 22, 20232 yr Author 3 minutes ago, trurl said: Did you format? If so, that would explain since after format it would be an empty filesystem. Yes, system said I had to format it to use it again, so I did that. Would that not be the right step? Any chance to get back the data?
December 22, 20232 yr Author 1 minute ago, trurl said: Was the "ready for formatting" disk disabled? If so, them perhaps you only formatted the emulated disk and then rebuilt that. So maybe the original disk still has its data. That was on the replaced (new) disk. I still have the old disk, but that one was faulty I think so I replaced it.
December 22, 20232 yr Community Expert 18 minutes ago, aurevo said: Yes, system said I had to format it to use it again, so I did that. It would not have said exactly that. If the disk had an unmountable filesystem, then it would have given you a checkbox to allow you to format, but you should never format a disk that has data on it you wish to keep. Format is a write operation that creates an empty filesystem on the disk. Format updates parity like all write operations (how could parity be valid otherwise). So after formatting a disk in the array, parity is in sync with the empty filesystem on that disk, and rebuilding can only rebuild an empty filesystem. 19 minutes ago, trurl said: Was the "ready for formatting" disk disabled? Did it have a RED X next to it? 18 minutes ago, aurevo said: Would that not be the right step? The correct way to deal with an unmountable disk is with check filesystem. And if the disk is also disabled (RED X), it is still emulated by parity. In that case, you would still check filesystem so the emulated filesystem could be repaired before rebuilding. 17 minutes ago, aurevo said: I still have the old disk, but that one was faulty I think Why do you think it was faulty? Connection problems are much more common than bad disks. Even if the disk did need replacing, maybe it can still be read well enough to get files from it.
December 22, 20232 yr Community Expert When the diagnstics were taken, it looks like it was still rebuilding disk3, and it is empty.
December 22, 20232 yr Author 54 minutes ago, trurl said: It would not have said exactly that. If the disk had an unmountable filesystem, then it would have given you a checkbox to allow you to format, but you should never format a disk that has data on it you wish to keep. Format is a write operation that creates an empty filesystem on the disk. Format updates parity like all write operations (how could parity be valid otherwise). So after formatting a disk in the array, parity is in sync with the empty filesystem on that disk, and rebuilding can only rebuild an empty filesystem. Did it have a RED X next to it? The correct way to deal with an unmountable disk is with check filesystem. And if the disk is also disabled (RED X), it is still emulated by parity. In that case, you would still check filesystem so the emulated filesystem could be repaired before rebuilding. Why do you think it was faulty? Connection problems are much more common than bad disks. Even if the disk did need replacing, maybe it can still be read well enough to get files from it. The disk was displayed as missing, after restart I could select it back fot the slot and than it said I have to format it. The disk long before that had SMART errors, so I thought it would be a good idea to replace it. Quote When the diagnstics were taken, it looks like it was still rebuilding disk3, and it is empty. Yes, I fomated the disk and started rebuilding. After that I recognised that it was incredible slow in rebuilding and that the disk was empty, which was admittedly a mistake on my part. What would be the most appropriate steps to take to try to access my data? In addition, the hard disks are encrypted, does this make a difference?
December 22, 20232 yr Community Expert 1 hour ago, aurevo said: it said I have to format it 2 hours ago, trurl said: It would not have said exactly that. Encryption is going to make it more difficult. Maybe you can mount the original disk with Unassigned Devices plugin, I think it supports encryption. I have no experience with encrypted filesystems on Unraid. Do you have backups?
December 22, 20232 yr Community Expert 1 minute ago, trurl said: Do you have backups? Since you say this is a backup server, I assume you have the files somewhere else and can just back them up again. 1 hour ago, aurevo said: slow in rebuilding Connection problems with parity disk. Cancel rebuild, shutdown, check all connections, both ends, SATA and power, including splitters. Reboot, restart rebuild, post new diagnostics.
December 22, 20232 yr Author 44 minutes ago, trurl said: Since you say this is a backup server, I assume you have the files somewhere else and can just back them up again. Connection problems with parity disk. Cancel rebuild, shutdown, check all connections, both ends, SATA and power, including splitters. Reboot, restart rebuild, post new diagnostics. I am able to mount the "defect" disk with Unattended Devices Plugin without starting the array. I will run an extended SMART check, maybe it is not faulty. I think I will order new cables and splitters or change SATA adapter card. After starting the server a few minutes ago I now have an empty disk configuration. For my luck I created a screenshot of the config. Would it be the way to assign the drives as before to restart the rebuild or is there anything else I have to care of?
December 22, 20232 yr Community Expert 1 hour ago, aurevo said: After starting the server a few minutes ago I now have an empty disk configuration. Your array configuration is on the flash drive in the config folder, just like the rest of the configuration. So that suggests a flash drive problem. And if that part of your configuration is missing have to wonder what else might be. All settings from the webUI are in config on flash. Post new diagnostics.
January 29, 20242 yr Author On 12/22/2023 at 8:07 PM, trurl said: Your array configuration is on the flash drive in the config folder, just like the rest of the configuration. So that suggests a flash drive problem. And if that part of your configuration is missing have to wonder what else might be. All settings from the webUI are in config on flash. Post new diagnostics. Hi, I am sorry to write back this late. Ordered a new case and assambled everything in the new case today. The disk configuration is still lost. Checked usb device, looks good, is read-and writable from within Windows and UnRAID itself. New diagnostics attached. Hope to recover all my data or get the system running. backup-diagnostics-20240129-1243.zip
January 29, 20242 yr Community Expert Still having ATA errors, note that using a Marvell controller and a controller with SATA port multipliers is not recommended, especially both together.
January 29, 20242 yr Community Expert 49 minutes ago, aurevo said: disk configuration is still lost. Do you have a recent backup of your flash drive?
January 29, 20242 yr Author 8 minutes ago, JorgeB said: Still having ATA errors, note that using a Marvell controller and a controller with SATA port multipliers is not recommended, especially both together. Only on one specific disk or on more than one? I did not had any other problems with this controller constellation. Also running such an controller in my main UnRAID build without problems. I currently think the problems elsewhere. But I only think so.
January 29, 20242 yr Author 5 minutes ago, trurl said: Do you have a recent backup of your flash drive? As I have unfortunately just discovered, no.
January 29, 20242 yr Author I just bought a whole set of new SATA data and power cables and will install them tomorrow to rule out the cables as the cause.
January 29, 20242 yr Community Expert 26 minutes ago, aurevo said: Only on one specific disk or on more than one? Just one at the moment: Device Model: ST4000DM004 Serial Number: WFN1DE6W It may also be a disk problem since it's not even giving a valid SMART report, try swapping cables with a different disk, ideally one using a different controller to rule that out.
January 29, 20242 yr Community Expert https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/changing-the-flash-device/#what-to-do-if-you-have-no-backup-and-do-not-know-your-disk-assignments
January 29, 20242 yr Author 29 minutes ago, JorgeB said: Just one at the moment: Device Model: ST4000DM004 Serial Number: WFN1DE6W It may also be a disk problem since it's not even giving a valid SMART report, try swapping cables with a different disk, ideally one using a different controller to rule that out. I changed the SATA cable and connected the HDD to the onboard controller instead of the other one. Does this looks better in logs or still errors? Should this errors appear in system log or another one? backup-diagnostics-20240129-1443.zip
January 29, 20242 yr Author 24 minutes ago, trurl said: https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/changing-the-flash-device/#what-to-do-if-you-have-no-backup-and-do-not-know-your-disk-assignments I have a screenshot of the old configuration, so I know the old disk assignment. The only thing I changed was Disk 3 against a new HDD, because I thought it was defect. So I invalidated parity. What would be the correct procedure to get the system up and running again? Assign the hard disks as before and then start the array?
January 29, 20242 yr Community Expert 1 minute ago, aurevo said: The only thing I changed was Disk 3 against a new HDD, because I thought it was defect. So I invalidated parity. Do you need to rebuild disk3?
January 29, 20242 yr Author 2 minutes ago, trurl said: Do you need to rebuild disk3? I changed Disk 3 to a new, empty one because I thought it was defect. But some posts ago I tried to mount the "old previous disk" via Unassigned Devides and that worked. So I think I can assign it back and will have access to the data, correct?
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