Did I do this right ? Swaping USB flash drive

[A.sch3]

Hi,

 

What I did worked, but it was a weird process from my perspective and would like to know if I might have done something wrong ?

tl;dr -> Used the unRAID software to restore a flash backup. Didn't really worked so I copied every file I could from the old->new flash drive. It worked to my surprise, but is it ok ?

 

Long story short : I had a 2Gb flash drive with the Unraid OS and License. Crappy flash drive. Started to got "bread directory" warning from Fix Common Problem, read online that I could be caused by a bad flash drive (although unRAID never failed to start and never crashed).

 

So I got myself a Samsung 32Gb recommended by SpaceInvaderOne on his video about USB drive reliability and got to it :

 

1 - I downloaded the backup zip file from the flash itself and followed the procedure from unRAID's guide.

2 - Opened the flash utility on my windows machine, put the zip file in, go.

3 - Remove the 32Gb flash drive and put it in the server, same place as the old 2Gb flash drive.

4 - Started the server

5 - The server failed to boot. Plugin a monitor revealed that the countdown to start unRAID OS kept looping back on itself.

6 - Tried to manually press enter to any of the option of the boot menu (safe mode, memtest, etc...) but nothing.

7 - So I plugged back the 2Gb flash drive and, as expected unRAID booted up.

8 - Remove every flash drive from the server and plugged them in my windows machine to compare the folder and files structures.

Huge differences !

2Gb flash drive :

32Gb flash drive : (Actually this picture is a reconstitution, there was other folder there I recall, but no files for sure).

So... I just copied the entire content of the 2Gb drive onto the 32Gb one. I clicked "Yes" when windows prompted me about same named files. 2 or 3 files failed to be copied from the 2Gb, I clicked Ignore to carry-on. I didnt noted which file it was as it felt to be pointless anyway.

 

So :

9 - Plugged the 32Gb drive back into the server and....

10 - unRAID booted like a charm. (My on the floor staring at the screen suspiciously waiting a crash that never came.)

 

Did I made this USB swap right ?

Is my unRAID at risk of file corruption or whatnot ?

 

It's been 3 days now and It seem to work just as before, except maybe the UI is kinda slower but that could be due to any other reason as I am aware that unRAID run from the RAM and not the flash drive itself.

 

Thanks for any insight !

Edited February 19 by A.sch3
added tl dr

[JonathanM]

The manual method of setting up a new flash drive is almost what you ended up doing. Extract the contents of the os zip file to the flash, run the make bootable script that matches the machine you are setting up the flash with, and boot. To make it your custom install instead of a new one, the config folder is all that's necessary.

 

I'm unclear where this

4 hours ago, A.sch3 said:

downloaded the backup zip file from the flash itself

file came from, but it certainly didn't contain what you needed.

[A.sch3]

Thanks for the reply !

 

This is where I downloaded the backup zip file :

 

But I'm kind of reassured and worried at the same time : the config folder didn't contained my config present in the flash backup zip file I downloaded ?

[JorgeB]

The backup should have everything, possible it was corrupt, create a new backup and check contents.

[A.sch3]

Oh ok. So a backup should contain what I need to create a new flash drive with my current config manually. Which is what I did while not knowing I was.

I checked on my previous backup of the faulty flash drive, and I can see the sames files and folders inside the archive than the one present on the physical drive.

 

In this end, I guess the unRAID tool failed to properly restore the flash backup zip file because of files corruption ? And me manually copying the old drive content to the new one, replacing existing duplicate just finished the normal process.

 

So nothing to worry about ! Thank you JorgeB and JonathanM for the insights, I now know better !

Edited February 20 by A.sch3
Precisions