Trying to replace a failed drive. Put the new and bigger drive as parity and the once-parity drive to the failed one's position. Unraid copied over the parity to the new drive successfully but when it was done the once-parity drive remains unformatted and wouldn't mount. Syslog attached and specs of my system is below. Help is very much appreciated.

 

Asus P5Q Pro

E6300

2Gb Ram

1x2TB(parity), 1X1.5Tb(once-parity, the one which wouldn't mount), 4x1TB, 2x500GB

Unraid 4.5.6

syslog.txt

updated

Could you describe what steps you have taken in more detail... from what you wrote it sounds like this.

 

Drive failed.

You replaced your parity drive (larger) so to get an extra drive to eventual replace the failed drive.

Rebuilt parity (failed drive still in array? or out of it?)

Now want to mount old parity drive as the failed drive in order to rebuild.

 

if you did the above, you have now lost the data that was on the failed drive.  To my knowledge unraid can not copy parity to a new drive.  It rebuilds it.  so would have used the failed drive to build a NEW parity calculation.  so any errors on the failed drive (if it was present during the build of parity) will always be there, even if you rebuild it on a new 'good' drive.

 

To my knowledge unraid can not copy parity to a new drive. 

Not true.  There is a "swap disable" process for replacing a failed data drive where you put a larger replacement drive in as parity, and the old parity drive in as a replacement for the failed data drive.

 

Read about it here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#Replace_a_failed_disk

To my knowledge unraid can not copy parity to a new drive. 

Not true.  There is a "swap disable" process for replacing a failed data drive where you put a larger replacement drive in as parity, and the old parity drive in as a replacement for the failed data drive.

 

Read about it here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#Replace_a_failed_disk

It is a one-step process.  you do not replace the parity drive as the first step, and then replace the failed drive as a second.   

 

In a single step you move the existing parity drive to the failed disks's slot in the array and install the new (typically larger) disk as the new parity disk.  When you start the array unRAID array copies from the old parity drive to the new, and then proceeds to re-construct the failed drive from the new parity disk in combination with all the other data disks in the array.

 

 

Could you describe what steps you have taken in more detail... from what you wrote it sounds like this.

 

Drive failed.

You replaced your parity drive (larger) so to get an extra drive to eventual replace the failed drive.

Rebuilt parity (failed drive still in array? or out of it?)

Now want to mount old parity drive as the failed drive in order to rebuild.

 

if you did the above, you have now lost the data that was on the failed drive.  To my knowledge unraid can not copy parity to a new drive.  It rebuilds it.  so would have used the failed drive to build a NEW parity calculation.  so any errors on the failed drive (if it was present during the build of parity) will always be there, even if you rebuild it on a new 'good' drive.

 

The story about the failed drive is long and I posted it for a couple of days but without getting any advice from anyone here so I deleted it and have given up on trying to recover the data. When I went out shopping for a new hard drive, 1.5TB drives ( same size as the one that failed ) are hard to come by in our city and in the stores where it is available, it is more expensive than the 2 TB ( go figure ) so bought the bigger drive to make that the new parity. I need help in getting the old parity drive to mount as a new blank data drive to the system.

To my knowledge unraid can not copy parity to a new drive. 

Not true.  There is a "swap disable" process for replacing a failed data drive where you put a larger replacement drive in as parity, and the old parity drive in as a replacement for the failed data drive.

 

Read about it here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#Replace_a_failed_disk

It is a one-step process.  you do not replace the parity drive as the first step, and then replace the failed drive as a second.   

 

In a single step you move the existing parity drive to the failed disks's slot in the array and install the new (typically larger) disk as the new parity disk.  When you start the array unRAID array copies from the old parity drive to the new, and then proceeds to re-construct the failed drive from the new parity disk in combination with all the other data disks in the array.

 

This is exactly what I did, the one step process.. But what I suspect why the drive wouldn't mount stems from the fact that I lost the data on the failed drive already before I tried replacing it with a new drive.

To my knowledge unraid can not copy parity to a new drive. 

Not true.  There is a "swap disable" process for replacing a failed data drive where you put a larger replacement drive in as parity, and the old parity drive in as a replacement for the failed data drive.

 

Read about it here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#Replace_a_failed_disk

It is a one-step process.  you do not replace the parity drive as the first step, and then replace the failed drive as a second.   

 

In a single step you move the existing parity drive to the failed disks's slot in the array and install the new (typically larger) disk as the new parity disk.  When you start the array unRAID array copies from the old parity drive to the new, and then proceeds to re-construct the failed drive from the new parity disk in combination with all the other data disks in the array.

 

This is exactly what I did, the one step process.. But what I suspect why the drive wouldn't mount stems from the fact that I lost the data on the failed drive already before I tried replacing it with a new drive.

The replacement/rebuilt drive would be an exact copy of the failed drive's data.  If the failed drive would not mount, neither would the re-constructed copy.   

 

You would however be able to repair the failed drive's data, using reiserfsck.

 

If you have not yet formatted the newly replaced drive, then you might try to check the file-system on it.

reiserfsck --check /dev/mdX

where X = the disk number in the array.

The replacement/rebuilt drive would be an exact copy of the failed drive's data.  If the failed drive would not mount, neither would the re-constructed copy.   

 

You would however be able to repair the failed drive's data, using reiserfsck.

 

If you have not yet formatted the newly replaced drive, then you might try to check the file-system on it.

reiserfsck --check /dev/mdX

where X = the disk number in the array.

 

It is saying something about bad block. It is saying it was a hardware issue and I should replace the drive. And in the end it says " bread: Cannot read block (2) (Input/output error) Aborted

To my knowledge unraid can not copy parity to a new drive. 

Not true.  There is a "swap disable" process for replacing a failed data drive where you put a larger replacement drive in as parity, and the old parity drive in as a replacement for the failed data drive.

 

Read about it here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#Replace_a_failed_disk

 

Neat!  Never had to do it.  The wiki doesn't say you have to tell unraid what to do... I assume you just have to make sure they are in the same slots (i.e. parity is connect to sda, new parity drive must be sda) when doing swap-disable?

The replacement/rebuilt drive would be an exact copy of the failed drive's data.  If the failed drive would not mount, neither would the re-constructed copy.   

 

You would however be able to repair the failed drive's data, using reiserfsck.

 

If you have not yet formatted the newly replaced drive, then you might try to check the file-system on it.

reiserfsck --check /dev/mdX

where X = the disk number in the array.

 

can you post the whole log and syslog?  Have you done the usual, and checked cables, power supply (is it large enough? connections not lose, etc)?

 

It is saying something about bad block. It is saying it was a hardware issue and I should replace the drive. And in the end it says " bread: Cannot read block (2) (Input/output error) Aborted

 

can you post the whole log and syslog?  Have you done the usual, and checked cables, power supply (is it large enough? connections not lose, etc)?

 

 

I'll check the manual on how to get the whole log. In the meantime, I included the syslog which I think is the same as the first one I posted. I haven't changed anything on my system except the addition of the new parity and switching it with the old one. It's the same size as the failed drive and all connections are ok, checked it in bios and last night unraid copied/rebuilt the contents of the old parity to the new one successfully so I think it's  ok connection/function-wise.

 

Thanks for the help guys.

syslog2.txt

To my knowledge unraid can not copy parity to a new drive. 

Not true.  There is a "swap disable" process for replacing a failed data drive where you put a larger replacement drive in as parity, and the old parity drive in as a replacement for the failed data drive.

 

Read about it here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#Replace_a_failed_disk

 

Neat!  Never had to do it.  The wiki doesn't say you have to tell unraid what to do... I assume you just have to make sure they are in the same slots (i.e. parity is connect to sda, new parity drive must be sda) when doing swap-disable?

Or, I think you can just change the assignments on the disk assignment page.

Or, I think you can just change the assignments on the disk assignment page.

 

I'll try that one.

 

update: Doesn't seem to work. It says invalid expansion. You may not add new disks when there exists missing, wrong, or disabled disk(s).

Or, I think you can just change the assignments on the disk assignment page.

 

I'll try that one.

 

update: Doesn't seem to work. It says invalid expansion. You may not add new disks when there exists missing, wrong, or disabled disk(s).

Then put them back the way they were.

Then put them back the way they were.

 

Anything else I could try?

 

Thanks

Post a new syslog.

Post a new syslog.

 

Thanks

syslog3.txt

Post SMART reports.

Post SMART reports.

 

Thanks

smart.txt

Post a report for disk7.

Post a report for disk7.

 

Thanks again.

smart2.txt

Disk 7 has pending sectors and needs to be rebuilt. A pre-clear would be a good idea. What is the current state of the array?

Disk 7 has pending sectors and needs to be rebuilt. A pre-clear would be a good idea. What is the current state of the array?

 

The array is ok with Disk 4 ( Red ) the only one that I cannot add as a data disk no matter what I do. Parity is red as well but maybe because disk 4 is not mounting for whatever reason. I'll pre-clear disk 7 and see what happens.

 

Thanks

UnRAID cannot recover from more than two disk failures. You may already have lost disk 4. Do not yet clear disk 7 if you need its contents.