Mounting existing data drive using Unassigned Devices - No "mount" button to click

[mad_dr]

Hi all. I'm new to the world of servers and Unraid and command prompts etc so please be gentle. I've read pages and pages on here, reddit, google, etc and watched Spaceinvader One's YT videos, etc. I'm trying to set up a new Unraid/Plex server but am a little stuck on the basics when I try to follow the tutorials and guides. So thanks for any help and sorry if I've missed a guide or thread that covers this!

 

A few years ago, a friend hosted and administered Plex for me on his Unraid server using two 10Tb HDDs with my data. He's no longer able to host Plex for me so I need to build my own Unraid/Plex server with my data. The two 10Tb data drives are old and are earmarked for something else so he copied my files to a pair of brand new WD Gold 10Tb drives using a HDD dock via USB. Now I'm having to figure a bunch of stuff out and am struggling a little.

 

In total I have four new 10Tb HDDs (two preloaded with my data and two which are empty). I plan on using three as data drives and one as a parity drive.

 

I've built a new server and have installed Unraid (latest version) on a 32Gb USB stick. So far I've been able to get the machine to boot into Unraid and have installed my Unraid key (basic). I installed the Unassigned Devices plugin and started by installing one of the new empty drives and formatted it as XFS (for parity). I then installed a 1Tb SSD cache drive, formatted it and assigned it to the pool option.

 

I then installed the two XFS data drives but Unraid doesn't seem to want to let me add them to an array without formatting them first: they showed up in Unassigned Devices but there was no option to Mount them. The only button that showed up was Format which I obviously don't want to do. Does anyone have any suggestions why this might be the case?

 

So then, after more reading about data migration with Unraid, I thought I might be able to use the two new empty drives as my data drives by adding them to the array and then copying the data from the current data drives to them - perhaps Unraid would be happier that way rather than using my drives as-is. Then I would format the current data drives and use those as the parity and data 3 drives.

 

So I installed the two new empty drives, formatted them as XFS no problem, added them to the array, started the array, installed Krusader and created user shares called "Movies" and "TV shows" from the Unraid GUI - so far so good. I set cache for the shares to the 1Tb pool drive (but I believe I'll run into problems unless I set the minimum free space setting on the cache pool to be greater than the largest file I'll be transferring).

 

But I still have the basic issue of not being able to access the data on the first two drives now that they're showing up in unassigned devices. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong and how I can get this drive mounted? Thanks all!

 

[mad_dr]

Hi all. I'm new to the world of servers and Unraid and command prompts etc so please be gentle. I've read pages and pages on here, reddit, google, etc and watched Spaceinvader One's YT videos, etc. I'm trying to set up a new Unraid/Plex server but am a little stuck on the basics when I try to follow the tutorials and guides. So thanks for any help and sorry if I've missed a guide or thread that covers this!

 

A few years ago, a friend hosted and administered Plex for me on his Unraid server using two 10Tb HDDs with my data. He's no longer able to host Plex for me so I need to build my own Unraid/Plex server with my data. The two 10Tb data drives are old and are earmarked for something else so he copied my files to a pair of brand new WD Gold 10Tb drives using a HDD dock via USB. Now I'm having to figure a bunch of stuff out and am struggling a little.

 

In total I have four new 10Tb HDDs (two preloaded with my data and two which are empty). I plan on using three as data drives and one as a parity drive.

 

I've built a new server and have installed Unraid (latest version) on a 32Gb USB stick. So far I've been able to get the machine to boot into Unraid and have installed my Unraid key (basic). I installed the Unassigned Devices plugin and started by installing one of the new empty drives and formatted it as XFS (for parity). I then installed a 1Tb SSD cache drive, formatted it and assigned it to the pool option.

 

I then installed the two XFS data drives but Unraid doesn't seem to want to let me add them to an array without formatting them first: they showed up in Unassigned Devices but there was no option to Mount them. The only button that showed up was Format which I obviously don't want to do. Does anyone have any suggestions why this might be the case?

 

So then, after more reading about data migration with Unraid, I thought I might be able to use the two new empty drives as my data drives by adding them to the array and then copying the data from the current data drives to them - perhaps Unraid would be happier that way rather than using my drives as-is. Then I would format the current data drives and use those as the parity and data 3 drives.

 

So I unplugged one of the existing data drives, installed the two new empty drives, formatted them as XFS no problem, added them to the array, started the array, installed Krusader and created user shares called "Movies" and "TV shows" from the Unraid GUI - so far so good. I set cache for the shares to the 1Tb pool drive (but I believe I'll run into problems unless I set the minimum free space setting on the cache pool to be greater than the largest file I'll be transferring).

 

But I still have the basic issue of not being able to access the data on the first of the two existing data drives now that they're showing up in unassigned devices. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong and how I can get this drive mounted? Thanks all!

 

Edited January 25 by mad_dr
corrections

[mad_dr]

Attached are the following:

 

1. Diagnostics Log

2. SMART report for one drive that will mount (new, empty disk formatted and XFS file system set up. Can be added to array. Intend to copy files to here)

3. SMART report for one drive that won't mount (new disk with my content copied from the previous, working Unraid/Plex server. Cannot be added to array. Only option is to Format, per the screengrab above. Intend to copy files from here)

WDC_WD102KRYZ-01A5AB0_VH0U8WLM-20240124-2206 (WILL MOUNT).txt WDC_WD102KRYZ-01A5AB0_VH0UDB7M-20240124-2205 (WON'T MOUNT).txt plex-diagnostics-20240124-2200.zip

[itimpi]

I am a bit confused about what you are trying to do?  You mention formatting a disk for parity but that is weird since parity has no file system.  Have you actually set up a parity drive as once you have done so you cannot add new data drives to the array without first wiping their contents.   If you have NOT assigned a parity drive then it is possible to get drives added to the array without losing the contents as long as they were previously formatted and partitioned by Unraid.  

[JorgeB]

Is the sdc the disk you are trying to mount? According to the screenshot it doesn't have a partition.

[JorgeB]

Please don't post multiple threads about the same thing, merged both.

[mad_dr]

7 hours ago, JorgeB said:

Please don't post multiple threads about the same thing, merged both.

Sorry Jorge - I would never intentionally create two threads for the same thing; I got a website error ("something went wrong") when I first tried to post it so I clicked back, tried again and it worked. A few minutes later I saw it had created two threads (one of which was live and let me reply to it with the logs and the other of which was "pending moderator approval") so I went into the pending one, clicked "moderation actions" at the top and selected to delete that thread - I guess the deletion didn't happen - sorry - I'll be more careful in future.

 

In terms of the replies - thanks everyone. I have not yet set up a disk as parity - I will only do that once the array itself is working and shows my data. So, for now, no parity disks. Just the following:

USB stick with Unraid

1Tb SSD Cache pool

10Tb HDD, brand new, formatted as XFS, added to the array, ready to accept my data (VH0U8WLM)

10Tb HDD, brand new, formatted as XFS, added to the array, ready to accept my data (VH0U8WVM)

10Tb HDD, brand new, contains my data which was copied from old drives via a USB dock (VH0U8B7M)

10Tb HDD, brand new, contains my data which was copied from old drives via a USB dock (VH0U5W8M)

 

In the screenshot above, VH0U5W8M was not installed. It is now. So, VH0U8WLM and VH0U8WVM are behaving normally.

 

My first intent/hope had been to:

1. Add VH0U8B7M (sdc) and VH0U5W8M (sde I think) to the array with their existing data

2. Add VH0U8WLM (sdd) to the array as a third data drive

3. Add VH0U8WVM (sdb) as a parity drive

4. Enjoy

 

When I found that I couldn't just add VH0U8B7M (sdc) and VH0U5W8M (sde) to the array (possibly due to them lacking partitions according to Jorge above), I decided to follow some of the migration approaches I'd seen on here and to format the empty drives (VH0U8WLM (sdd) and VH0U8WVM (sdb)) and add those to the array instead (which worked). Then I would copy the data over using Krusader (or similar) by mounting the existing data drives (VH0U8B7M (sdc) and VH0U5W8M (sde)) but found that I can't access them other than to Preclear them or format them.

 

If I can access the data on VH0U8B7M (sdc) and VH0U5W8M (sde), the current intent is to:

1. Copy the data from VH0U8B7M and VH0U5W8M over to the array drives (VH0U8WLM and VH0U8WVM)

2. Format VH0U8B7M, assign the XFS file system and add it to the array

3. Format VH0U5W8M and set it as a parity drive

 

It sounds like they lack a file system (I will have to ask my friend about how he did the data copying) which is preventing me from doing this. Potentially he can send me his USB HDD dock if that would give me another way of accessing the data on them?

 

Thanks all.

 

[JorgeB]

26 minutes ago, mad_dr said:

Potentially he can send me his USB HDD dock if that would give me another way of accessing the data on them?

This could be the issue, some USB bridges are not transparent, if that is the case the data will only be accessible using the same one, try that.

 

 

27 minutes ago, mad_dr said:

I would never intentionally create two threads for the same thing

No worries.

 

[mad_dr]

Thanks guys - all is good now. I got hold of the USB HDD dock that my friend used to clone my drives and the drives immediately showed up correctly in Unassigned Devices.

 

Then I was able to install Krusader and use it to move the data onto the shares in the array. Then I formatted the original drives and added them to the array. Finally I set up another drive as parity and all seems good.

 

I do have some exclamation marks next to various shares (that seemed to get created automatically) but I’ll look into that separately. Thanks again.