[SOLVED] Replacing a failed drive (which is empty) when there is no valid parity

[Bagpuss]

Hi All,

 

Just wanted to sanity check my procedure, before I make a mistake with someone else's data.

 

I've built a new unRAID box for a friend, and it currently has 4 data drives, 1 parity and a cache drive.

At the moment, only disk1 has any data on it, and we don't have any valid parity.

 

When trying to build the parity, we found that we were getting massive numbers of read errors from disk4.

A SMART check confirms that this drive is on the way out.

 

So, I need to remove this drive from the configuration, add a replacement, and then build parity. All without losing the data that 's on disk1.

 

Am I correct in thinking that the following would work (running unRAID 5.0rc3):

 

1) Stop array.

2) Unassign disk4 in the GUI.

3) Power down server and replace failed drive.

4) Run preclear on new drive.

5) Execute 'New Config' from GUI.

6) Re-assign drives as they were previously, but including new drive as disk4.

7) Start array and build parity.

 

I'm hoping that this will not lose any of the data on disk1. Am I correct?

 

Thanks,

 

Andy.

 

[kenoka]

You should be good to go. Since you're still building the initial parity, there's really nothing to lose.

[cpshoemake]

Yes, that will work. No data on disk 1 would be lost unless you accidentally assigned it to parity.

[Bagpuss]

Thanks for the quick reply!

 

Andy.