Hello,

I've had a bunch of issues lately and determined my server was unstable and dropping PCIe lanes most likely due to a failing power supply.

I replaced the power supply and on the next boot I lost 1 of my 8 drives and then messed up the process because I didn't realize the drive was failed and just thought it was detecting improperly and ended up dumping my parity data.

Long story short I lost 2 of my 10TB of data but luckily most of what I lost should be backed up.

Now after a few days I started getting this message: Your flash drive is corrupted or offline. Post your diagnostics in the forum for help. See also here

Can someone more versed in this confirm for me if I can just re-image my flashdrive and put my config folders back or is the drive actually toast?

I just replaced the flashdrive recently since I thought it was the drive causing my previous issues so I will need assistance from Unraid support to authorize another serial transfer.

Even on reboot it fails again to this message within an hour so I'm pretty dead in the water right now.

I have already backed up my flash backup zip.

My diagnostics zip file is attached below.

Thank you in advance

jarvis-diagnostics-20260414-1030.zip

2 minutes ago, vruasix said:

ended up dumping my parity data

What exactly do you mean by this?

If you can reformat that same flash drive and restore your flash backup to it you won't have to do a license transfer.

3 minutes ago, trurl said:

What exactly do you mean by this?

If you can reformat that same flash drive and restore your flash backup to it you won't have to do a license transfer.

Most of my data is intact but do to my previous mistake with the failed drive when I replaced it I lost the parity data on my 2 parity drives.

I'm not familiar with the info provided in the diag file so in short would it be safe to re-image my flash drive and restore the backed up config files only, or should I just get a replacement flashdrive to be safe and move forward with the transfer.

I should mention when I replaced the drive last time I just extracted the backup zip to the new drive then booted and activated, trying to avoid having to do the license transfer process again if possible since I would require approval and I just want to be up and running.

1 minute ago, vruasix said:

my previous mistake with the failed drive when I replaced it I lost the parity data on my 2 parity drives.

That is just a longer way of saying what you already said. Please explain exactly what "mistake" you did. Doesn't really matter I guess just wondering if there is something I could explain that would keep you from making that "mistake" again.

9 minutes ago, vruasix said:

re-image my flash drive and restore the backed up config files

yes

18 minutes ago, trurl said:

reformat that same flash drive and restore your flash backup to it you won't have to do a license transfer.

3 minutes ago, trurl said:

That is just a longer way of saying what you already said. Please explain exactly what "mistake" you did. Doesn't really matter I guess just wondering if there is something I could explain that would keep you from making that "mistake" again.

yes

Sorry I misunderstood that you were just looking for more context

I have no issue pointing out my mistakes in hopes someone else doesn't do the same...

So this was the designation of my old failed drive: ST4000NM033-9ZM170_Z1Z9XW1G - 4 TB (sdb)

I came back to my pool always offline and the designation for that one drive was wrong with just part of it missing either the submodel (9ZM170) or the Serial (Z1Z9XW1G) but the crucial part I didn't see was that it was showing up as 4.1 GB not 4 TB like it was supposed to.

I troubleshot it thinking it was a logic issue with my Marvell 88SE9215 (I'm aware these suck and will be replacing it when I can) add-in card but it turns out the drive was just bad.

I thought everything was fine and it just didn't recognize the drive because the name was coming up wrong, apparently that SATA add-in card can sometime cause issues like that on Linux to my understanding.

I followed the instructions for Tools > New Config > Preserve Assignments > All (because I believed that the drive was fine which tanked my Parity data, I'm aware that I'm an idiot and still beating myself up over it.)

As long as you think it is safe to try I will try to re-image the current flashdrive and move forward, otherwise I can request the license transfer.

Edited April 14Apr 14 by vruasix

7 minutes ago, vruasix said:

safe to try

What could it hurt? If the flash drive can't be reused you will have to do a license transfer.

Might be some useful "flash drive" research for you to do here:

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/196967-unraid-boot-device-guide-usb-and-nvme-hardware-selection/

Also, Unraid v7.3 (currently beta) allows for "internal boot", which doesn't require a flash drive:

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/release-notes/7.3.0/#onboarding-and-internal-boot

I will definitely try internal boot then once I get it up and running then.
I have 1 of my M.2 drives dedicated to Cache but it's literally never used it so I could easily convert it.

I went ahead and removed the flashdrive and popped it into my desktop and ran a filesystem repair from Gnome Disks so I'll monitor for 24 hours to see if it is stable or not before I attempt to re-image.

If it is then maybe I can convert to Internal Boot and forgo these flashdrive issues going forward.

Thank you again for your help.

Edited April 14Apr 14 by vruasix

3 minutes ago, vruasix said:

I have 1 of my M.2 drives dedicated to Cache but it's literally never used it so I could easily convert it.

Internal boot will create a small boot partition on whichever drive you put it on the rest of the drive can be used for storage.

7 hours ago, vruasix said:

If it is then maybe I can convert to Internal Boot and forgo these flashdrive issues going forward.

One thing worth remembering is that internal boot has several drawbacks.

Read up on it first -- the USB boot guide provides lots of relevant info on USB flash drives and internal boot configurations.

Then decide for yourself.

Besides, it's still in beta - wait for stable.

Edited April 15Apr 15 by Lolight

21 minutes ago, Lolight said:

One thing worth remembering is that internal boot has several drawbacks.

Read up on it first -- the USB boot guide provides lots of relevant info on USB flash drives and internal boot configurations.

Then decide for yourself.

Besides, it's still in beta - wait for the stable.

I seem to have gotten it stable since repairing the flashdrive.

I will give it some thought while I wait for the official release at this point not sure if I'd prefer internal boot or mirrored usb.

5 minutes ago, vruasix said:

not sure if I'd prefer internal boot or mirrored usb.

You can't mirror your flash drive. Internal boot can be mirrored.

2 minutes ago, trurl said:

You can't mirror your flash drive. Internal boot can be mirrored.

There's a whole section on it here: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/196967-unraid-boot-device-guide-usb-and-nvme-hardware-selection/

Titled: USB Flash Drive Mirrored Boot Pool — Confirmed Supported Configuration (Unraid 7.3 Beta)

25 minutes ago, vruasix said:

I will give it some thought while I wait for the official release at this point not sure if I'd prefer internal boot or mirrored usb.

Mirrored USB drives in a pool is one of the available internal boot configurations.

You can't mirror USB flash drives while on USB boot.

Edited April 15Apr 15 by Lolight

Is there functionally a difference other than the fact that it counts as a used drive?

I'm not trying to be smart just trying to understand if I'm confused here.

Other than the drive count usage I don't see a downside since it allows it to remain portable and the license doesn't become locked to the hardware.

The mirrored boot is where the OS archives and your configuration are stored. This is what Unraid loads at boot, and where it saves changes made in the webUI (your configuration).

But it isn't where your license is stored. That is either on TPM or a separate flash drive.

On 2/3/2026 at 1:47 AM, Lolight said:

How It Works

The configuration has two variants depending on licensing method.

With TPM licensing:

Drive 1 — USB flash drive or DOM, 8GB minimum, boot pool member

Drive 2 — USB flash drive or DOM, 8GB minimum, boot pool member

License — stored on motherboard TPM chip, USB drive removed entirely

With USB licensing (no TPM available):

Drive 1 — USB flash drive or DOM, 8GB minimum, boot pool member

Drive 2 — USB flash drive or DOM, 8GB minimum, boot pool member

Drive 3 — existing USB license drive, with no size restrictions, holds the license key as before

Each device in internal boot consumes a license slot.

With mirrored USB flash drive in internal boot config they will consume 2 license slots.

The license key can be placed on either TPM or third USB drive - your choice.

The third USB drive with the license key on it won't consume a license slot.

So in some ways, not that different than SSDs, except with SSDs you have a mirrored boot partition, and another mirrored partition assigned as a pool for storage, all on the same pair of SSDs.

My understanding is that it's pretty much the same thing as with SSDs.

Both methods can have a partition allocated for storage it's just not as practical for USBs drives.

1 minute ago, Lolight said:

Both methods can have a partition allocated for storage it's just not as practical for USBs drives.

And I alway recommend not using USB for assigned drives for many reasons.

5 minutes ago, trurl said:

So in some ways, not that different than SSDs, except with SSDs you have a mirrored boot partition, and another mirrored partition assigned as a pool for storage, all on the same pair of SSDs.

Would I be able to do mirrored boot across 2 M.2 Drives and then use the remainder of the drives for Cache?

Just now, vruasix said:

Would I be able to do mirrored boot across 2 M.2 Drives and then use the remainder of the drives for Cache?

yes, that is the way it is intended to be used.

You still need license on TPM, or another flash drive, such as your existing licensed flash drive.

So I would make the bootable source mirrored across my cache drives for redundancy but the license remains bound to the uuid of the connected flash drive as a physical key but no R/RW is ever required to the flashdrive.

That makes tons of sense.

5 hours ago, vruasix said:

So I would make the bootable source mirrored across my cache drives for redundancy but the license remains bound to the uuid of the connected flash drive as a physical key but no R/RW is ever required to the flashdrive.

That makes tons of sense.

Nearly write. There is a read during the boot process to read the licence file. I guess it is possible there are other occasional reads to check it is still there.

A key point is that the flash drive needs to be permanently available and it is still possible for it to fail even with no R/W activity (although it should be far les likely).