Unraid server is dead - what would be the best way to proceed?

[vj]

I have been using Unraid for many years (since 2010) and last upgraded in 2016. Since then, it has been running and I scarcely looked at it. I primarily used it for photos, document storage and plex. And usage has been pretty low for the last 2 years, so would rarely look at it until my wife asked me for some old photos. -I was surprised to see that my Unraid server was down and wouldn't start up. 

 

So, I started to troubleshoot. I thought that my power supply was bad, but ruled taht out using a power supply tester that I had. So, I am guessing the MB is down and I will need a new one. 

 

The USB drive is still working, I was able to view the files in on the drive. I found from a file in the root folder called changes, that the version of unraid is 6.2 from 2016 (snippet from the changes file at the bottom).

 

I have a parity drive, cache drive, and 5 drives. But, I am not sure which one is the parity drive. I tried to look up at the files in the config folder, but the disk.cfg did not have the details of the drives (i was hoping to find the drive name or some serial number to identify the drive).

 

Of course, I want to rebuild my server, but what is the best way to go about doing it without losing my data? My goal is to first get it running with the current version and then upgrade it. 

 

My thoughts are:

1. build a new server --> I haven't looked at motherboards or CPUs for the last 10 years, so will need to start all over again. 
2. try rebooting just using the USB drive and see if the drive is working fine --> Should I even do this step or skip. I am worried that it will overwrite some the config if it does not find any drives
3. connect the hard drives
4. start the server --> In the past, when I had to replace a bad drive or moved drives, they was some additional steps to be done in the UI. I am still assuming that will require to be done and it should be good. Keeping my fingers crossed that all hard drives are working.

 

I just wanted to make sure that I haven't forgotten any steps, hence this post. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

unRAID Server OS Change Log
===========================

Version 6.2 2016-09-15
----------------------

- stable release version

Version 6.2.0-rc5 2016-09-04
----------------------------

Base distro:

- gnupg: version 1.4.21 (CVE-2016-6313)
- libgcrypt: version 1.7.3 (CVE-2016-6313)

Linux kernel:

- version 4.4.19

 

[JonathanM]

1 hour ago, vj said:

try rebooting just using the USB drive and see if the drive is working fine --> Should I even do this step or skip. I am worried that it will overwrite some the config if it does not find any drives

It should show the list of drives, with them all missing. No harm here.

 

Your plan looks good to me.

[Rajahal]

I'm going through a similar failure recovery, and my server is of a similar vintage (hardware from 2010 - 2012, with only drive upgrades since then). When I first noticed the problem, I found that my server was running, but the dashboard was showing the flash drive had failed (was in read-only mode), and one of my data disks had failed and was being emulated for the past month. I did a backup of the flash drive contents, but much of it was corrupted, so it wasn't helpful. I do have older backups of the flash that I could reference if needed, but thus far I haven't needed to.

 

So while all of this won't apply to your situation, some of this may help you or others who find this post:

 

If prepping a new flash drive for older hardware, keep in mind that you may want an older model flash drive as well. I got the Sandisk Cruzer Glide USB 2.0 which was recommended in these forums. The motherboard I'm using doesn't support USB 3.0, so its a safer bet to use a USB 2.0 flash drive. Also keep in mind that while flashing the new drive, it is very likely that you'll need to uncheck the UEFI box on the drive flashing utility, as many motherboards of that era did not support UEFI. If you are swapping to a modern motherboard, then you probably want UEFI enabled. Either way, you'll have to tell the motherboard to boot from the flash drive, and may need to disable its attempts to boot from the other drives in the system.

 

If you have the ability to grab a screenshot of the server dashboard Main page before powering it down, it is useful to do so, so you can associate the drive serial numbers with their disk assignment slots. If you aren't able to do this, its not a huge deal.

 

When powered up the new server for the first time, if you are using your original flash drive then the disk assignments should be remembered. If you are using a new flash drive, then you will likely be faced with a blank config. If you have a screenshot to reference, you can easily assign the drives to the correct drive slots based on serial number. If you don't, then this is a critical step:

DO NOT ASSIGN A PARITY DRIVE

This is the biggest potential to lose data. If you accidentally assign a data drive to the parity slot and start a parity build, that data will be lost. If you don't know which is the parity drive(s), the safest bet is to assign drives one by one to the data slots, and make a note of which ones show as valid formatted drives. If the parity drive(s) is assigned to a data slot, unRAID will show it has having an invalid format, and that's your clue that it isn't a data drive. Now in some cases a failed data drive could show up as unformatted as well, so its still best to exercise caution here. If you previously had an array of 5 data drives and 1 parity drive, and through guess-and-check you are able to assign the 5 data drives and they all show up as valid, then you know the final one is the parity drive. If you wind up in a situation where you only had 1 parity drive previously, but more than one drive is showing as unformatted or invalid, then reach out here in the forums for help. You may want to start the array without parity assigned just to confirm the contents of the drives, that your data is all still there. The parity drive is the least important drive in this recovery process, and it should be saved for last in terms of assigning disks.

 

Best of luck! In my case the recovery is going easier than planned. I had bought two new drives to upgrade parity and the failed data drive, in addition to the new flash drive. It turns out that just replacing the flash drive seems to be enough, and the rest of the array is OK after all. I'm still watching that previously flagged 'failed' data disk closely, and I'm ready to swap it out if in fact unRAID flags it again.

[vj]

Thank you @Rajahal. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to work on my system due to vacation with family. But, I am back now and ready to get started. 

 

I am planning to build my new system using (based on this post😞

ASRock Z690 Pro RS LGA 1700 (14th,13th,12th Gen) Intel Z690 SATA 6Gb/s DDR4 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i5-12400 - Core i5 12th Gen Alder Lake 6-Core 2.5 GHz LGA 1700 65W Intel UHD Graphics 730 Desktop Processor - BX8071512400

Mushkin 16GB(1X16GB) Essentials DDR4 PC4-3200 3200MHz Desktop Memory Model MES4U320NF16G

 

I am looking at this power supply - Thermaltake Toughpower GF A3 650W 80+ Gold

 

See any issues with this configuration?

 

Thanks!

Edited April 17 by vj
all details in one post rather than 2.

[vj]

Update:

 

Ok. I got my new hardware (I had to get Crucial memory instead of Mushkin because they said it would take 10 days to get that memory). 

 

The MB has some issues, the first 2 memory slots doesn't work (A1,A2), but B1/B2 works, so at this time, I only have single channel memory. Asrock recommended I replace the motherboard, so waiting for new one. It will come next week.

 

But, the system still works. I connected all my drives and was able to start my Unraid server. It recognized all my drives and I was able to run a parity check and it came back with no issues. Phew!

 

But, I am now getting "Device eth0 does not exist" message, so I am unable to get to unraid from my laptop etc. I am seeing a few posts on these forums on how to fix it, so will look into it. 

 

 

[JorgeB]

Please post the diagnostics.
 

[vj]

Here is the diagnostics. My timezone is America/Chicago and I also noticed that the date when I login is 5 hours behind. So, if I login at 11 pm, typing date command brings back 6 pm.

 

I went through the posts regarding  "Device eth0 does not exist". I deleted my network.cfg, ensured that Bridging is enabled. I also bought a separate NIC and tried to use it, but no luck. I still get the same message and I cannot connect to the server over my network. 

 

tower-diagnostics-20240426-1833.zip

[JorgeB]

There's no driver for your NIC in that old release, update to v6.12.10 and it should work then, since there's no internet, you will need to do a manual updated.

[vj]

Thank you @JorgeB.

 

Since I am on version 6.2 and have the legacy Plus license, do I need to upgrade my license before continuing? Or will I automatically get the free 30 days before deciding which license to purchase.

 

I plan to follow steps using - https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/upgrade-instructions/#manual-upgrade-from-the-unraid-command-line

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, vj said:

Since I am on version 6.2 and have the legacy Plus license, do I need to upgrade my license before continuing? Or will I automatically get the free 30 days before deciding which license to purchase.

 

Not sure I understand your question?    If you have a paid-for legacy licence then this is valid for all current and future Unraid releases.

[vj]

Great! I thought I had to update my license before I upgraded. Thanks!

 

I went ahead and upgraded and it went very smoothly. I am now able to access all my files.

 

I am unable to download new apps/plugins. I seem to have lost those during my upgrade. But, i will look into that later. At this time, what I need was my files.

 

Thank you all very much for all the support.