So the Custom build machine went down a while ago and it was determined that the motherboard or CPU fried I have a new much more powerful machine that i want to run off but it wont hold all the drives i had before. I wanted to know if there is a way to recover the data off the old drives so that i might be able to condense the data. I tried to research if i could i could access the data on each drive and from what i understood i should be able to. When i connect one of the drives to Windows it states the disk isn't initialized.

Should i try in lynx or what would be a recommendation or am i SOL if i dont rebuild the old machine exactly machine.

Use an external enclosure and access the drives as Unassigned Devices

On 10/16/2026 at 2:43 PM, trurl said:

Use an external enclosure and access the drives as Unassigned Devices

I did connect the drives to a external hard drive sled and windows doesn't seem to recognize the formatting.

What is the formatting does Unraid use.

20 minutes ago, Drezzden said:

I did connect the drives to a external hard drive sled and windows doesn't seem to recognize the formatting.

What is the formatting does Unraid use.

Unraid uses Linux style formats (ReiserFS (deprectead), XFS, BTRFS, ZFS). If you boot the machine into Linux (which can be done using a 'live' CD') then you should be able to read them without issues. It is also possible to get software for Windows (e.g. from Paragon Software) that supports such file systems but it typically not free.

1 hour ago, Drezzden said:

windows doesn't seem to recognize

On 10/16/2026 at 2:43 PM, trurl said:

access the drives as Unassigned Devices

Unassigned Devices is one of the most commonly used Unraid plugins. When you have your new Unraid server working, use the Unassigned Devices plugin to access the data on the old drives.