I have a free and vanilla install of 4.7 which I've been running with 3 dissimilar 2TB drives on a sturdy Dell SC420 Server for about a year. I went out of my way to buy a recommended flash drive - a Lexar 4GB. I have no backup flash drive or config

 

Suddenly I had a flash drive failure - and this flash drive can not be recognized on any of my several computers. Something like "this device is not working properly" or a variant. I cannot read the files in Windows Explorer - in fact, the UNRAID flash drive is not listed.

 

I've read in the forum that failure of the flash drive is rare, and it's good to have a backup flash drive and/or at least the config files

 

I believe (as i'm optimistic) that the three 2TB drives are fine. I have a new flash drive, I've installed 4.7 on it, all seems to boot and run well and I'm ready to recover the array or at least the data. How should I proceed?!

 

Thanks, and I apologize if this is covered somewhere else.

 

 

If you know for SURE which drive is the parity drive, just assign all the drives in their previous slots, and start the array. If you are at all hesitant about which drive is which, you can assign all drives to data slots, and start the array without a parity drive assigned, and the unformatted drive will be your parity drive. DO NOT ASSIGN A DRIVE TO THE PARITY SLOT WITHOUT KNOWING FOR SURE IT IS YOUR PARITY DRIVE. YOU WILL LOSE DATA IF YOU ASSIGN A DATA DRIVE TO THE PARITY SLOT. If you have more than 1 unformatted drive with all drives assigned to a data slot, STOP. Post a syslog and ask for assistance.

Thanks. I'm not sure which drives are what, so according to your instructions I want to pursue (when I'm comfortable) this "Assign all drives to data slots" procedure - but i can only assign 2 drives to data slots and one to parity (as I'm using the free version)

Thanks. I'm not sure which drives are what, so according to your instructions I want to pursue (when I'm comfortable) this "Assign all drives to data slots" procedure - but i can only assign 2 drives to data slots and one to parity (as I'm using the free version)

 

Assign 2 drives to data, start array.

 

- If both drives contain your data then those are your data drives, then you can just stop the array and re-assign the other drive to parity.

 

- If one of them says "unformatted" that's your parity drive, so stop the array and switch it with the other drive, then start the array. After you've ensured you are 100% sure both of those drives are your data drives, stop the array again and then assign the 3rd drive to parity.

 

You will have to rebuild parity either way, or at least I would. No telling if you got Disk1 and Disk2 in the same order.

No telling if you got Disk1 and Disk2 in the same order.

 

The order of the drives should not affect the parity calculation.

I'm 99% sure this worked! I'm rebuilding parity now

I assigned the drives 'wrong' at first - I assigned the physical parity drive to Disk 1 - and like you said, unraid reported Unformatted. So I identified the parity drive.

 

But when i went to reassign the remaining data drive - i got an error "Too many drives assigned to Disk 1" - it seems the ghost of the parity drive was still in the config (in italics). I tried to shake it but I wound up just shutting down, then overwriting the Config folder on the flash drive.

 

With this knowledge and a fresh config, I rebooted and assigned Disk 1, Disk 2 and Parity properly, yet the system still wanted a full rebuild of Parity - which I obliged it.

 

The disks & files are showing up on the network and the parity is doing it's thing. So I'm happy and thankful for all your timely help!