Boot Problems / Now Unable to Boot (SOLVED)

[ANJ_]

I've been having some issues lately with my unraid GUI being a bit unresponsive or slow despite apps working, most the time I've just left it be as I didn't need to access it much but after some time things usually slow down even more and a reboot is needed. A few times trying to reboot I couldn't get unraid to launch, I switched the USB port for my flash drive and then it booted back up. So today my GUI again became unresponsive and I went to boot, however it wouldn't, after switching ports, still not booting.

Checking BIOS I made sure Fast Boot was disabled, and I reordered the boot priority to put the flash drive first, since I think when I switched it the first time it must have rearranged it, I also disabled all other drives as bootable drives. Still not having any luck. Just getting "Please select a proper boot device and reboot" I've just now plugged my flash into my Windows PC and the drive does show up in the This PC viewer, though it shows no capacity and in disk management it also shows No Media, as if it hasn't been formatted.

So the flash doesn't seem dead, but should anything be showing? I haven't plugged it into my PC before so I wasn't sure if when it's configured as an Unraid bootable it shows any media when plugged in.

Help would be appreciated, would love to put these rocky server boots behind me.

Also, I do have a flash drive backup.zip from a few months back if needed

Edited August 6 by ANJ_

[JonathanM]

The flash should be readily readable in windows, it should be FAT32, labeled UNRAID, with all the filenames visible, contents of the config folder pretty much readable text files.

 

Have you made any disk changes since the backup was made?

[ANJ_]

12 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

The flash should be readily readable in windows, it should be FAT32, labeled UNRAID, with all the filenames visible, contents of the config folder pretty much readable text files.

 

Have you made any disk changes since the backup was made?

Appreciate that info. And I haven't made any disk changes as far as swapping/adding/removing/formatting any drives if that's what you mean, not from what I can remember at least.
I think there may have been one instance where my Cache drive wasn't readable randomly and I had to reformat it, that might have occurred after the backup. Is there something I should be careful about in that case?

[JonathanM]

1 hour ago, ANJ_ said:

I think there may have been one instance where my Cache drive wasn't readable randomly and I had to reformat it, that might have occurred after the backup. Is there something I should be careful about in that case?

Should be fine, did you use the same format type?

[ANJ_]

14 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Should be fine, did you use the same format type?

I used the same format, yes. Sounds like I'll probably just reconfigure a new flash drive and give that a shot.

[ANJ_]

So I transferred my flash backup onto a new USB stick and I am now able to boot, however something I previously mentioned happened again. My SSD which functions as my cache drive once again is showing as btrfs and unmountable. I know I can solve it with a format and replace my appdata with backups but does anyone know what might cause this?

I guess it's possible that the last time this happened might be right around when the backup I used for this flash drive was made, not sure if there is a correlation or not, but if anyone has any insight? Not sure why my cache drive has randomly become unmountable now for the second time.

It's actually possible too that since the flash backup I used was made that I did actually swap out the cache drive for a larger one. Now that my server is up however I can access more recent backups and can once again copy over the flash backup onto the new usb, hopefully this might solve the issue, but again, if anyone has any ideas I would appreciate any information so I'm more informed on what may be going on.

Edited August 6 by ANJ_

[JonathanM]

Diagnostics might reveal something.

[ANJ_]

8 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Diagnostics might reveal something.

I'll look through the diagnostics. Though it seems I have created a new problem, which I'm sure has a quick fix if I knew where to look. Upon putting a more recent flash backup onto the flashdrive, it seems the Cache drive is now mountable however I'm being hit with a Invalid Key / GUID Mismatch. Which I just had to replace with this new flashdrive. I'm guessing the old backup must have had a key file in there causing the issue but upon trying the same "replace key" method I'm now getting 

Error: {"message":"Request failed with status code 403","data":{"error":"KeyFile is not valid"}}

[JonathanM]

22 minutes ago, ANJ_ said:

I just had to replace with this new flashdrive.

You need the key file that was issued for the new flashdrive. Did you happen to make a backup? If you can't find it, you will need to contact support and ask them to send you the file. Did you possibly get an email with a download link for the new file?

25 minutes ago, ANJ_ said:

upon trying the same "replace key" method

You need the key issued when you did it the first time.

[ANJ_]

1 minute ago, JonathanM said:

You need the key file that was issued for the new flashdrive. Did you happen to make a backup? If you can't find it, you will need to contact support and ask them to send you the file. Did you possibly get an email with a download link for the new file?

You need the key issued when you did it the first time.

Good call, they did email the new file, thanks! Everything seems to be in working order.

 

Appreciate all the help Jonathan!