I have been a happy user of UnRaid for several years, but lately, a bunch of problems began to crop up, I thought I had them fixed, but now appears that all is not well...

 

- several weeks ago, one of my disks was getting write errors, so I replaced it with a brand new one, that went smoothly, the array was successfully re-built with the new disk, great!

- now I came back from a long road trip, and found the whole system was shut down - a breaker had tripped, not knowing what tripped it, I fired everything back up, including the UnRaid server, first I get a Parity disk error, not good, so I shut down and re-start the server;

- now I get a different message, disk 2 is un-formatted (that's the disk that I just replaced recently);

- so I thought no big deal, hit the Format disk button and let the server re-format the disk; <== this is where I went wrong, I think... you are not suppose to Format the drive if there is data on it :-(

- after half an hour, I came back, refresh the UI screen, the disk is still un-formatted...

- in addition to the above, I already tried the following: replace the power supply, replace the SATA cable, making sure all the cables were connected securely, so as far as hardware is concerned, I don't see it being the problem. Could I have a bad disk (even though it is brand new and worked for several weeks already?)

 

So now what else can I do? How do I get the drive back to normal?

 

Thanks,

Jaz

 

 

syslog-js.txt

Post a SMART report.

Post a SMART report.

I doubt it will even respond to a smart report request.  let us know what happens when you try.

 

The disk seems to have stopped responding.  So, for that, your "format" command probably did nothing to it.

 

Since you have already powered down, and re-seated the cables, odds are it is a defective disk.  Your in-ability to mount it, even in simulated mode is a different issue.  You might need to run reiserfsck on /dev/md2 to get it back to normal.

 

Unfortunately, it is very common for disk drives to fail early in their lives.

 

Joe L.

Ok, I will try reiserfsck to see if I can get it going again. Alternatively, will I be able to re-build disk2 using yet another new disk and the parity drive info?

 

Thanks,

Jaz

 

Anyone knows? Assuming the disk is indeed bad, will I be able to re-build disk2 (the one that is "unformatted") using a new disk and the parity drive info?

 

Thanks in advance,

Jaz

Sounds like it... your earlier disk replace worked so you had a working array and after that you had a drive fail... A drive fail should be solved by parity..

 

If the format would have worked then the parity would make sure you would get your new drive also in the perfectly just formatted state :-)  But since that didn't work no data was written to the drive, parity info was not changed and drive should still be able to be recreated..

 

 

Thanks Helmonder. That's good to know. Still would like to get the "old new" drive working (still can't believe it just "went bad" so quickly, so will the following procedure work?

 

- After installing the "new new" drive, restore the array using the parity info and hopefully get it back online;

- Install the "old new" drive in another drive bay, run Preclear_disk (just to make sure every bit is set to zero);

- Add and assign the "old new" drive as a new disk in the array.

 

Thanks,

Jaz

 

Thanks Helmonder. That's good to know. Still would like to get the "old new" drive working (still can't believe it just "went bad" so quickly, so will the following procedure work?

 

- After installing the "new new" drive, restore the array using the parity info and hopefully get it back online;

- Install the "old new" drive in another drive bay, run Preclear_disk (just to make sure every bit is set to zero);

- Add and assign the "old new" drive as a new disk in the array.

 

Thanks,

Jaz

 

That is exactly how I would do it... Let preclear run 3 or more cycles to be sure...

Bad news, I installed the brand new disk today but for some reason still can not rebuild the array, attached are the syslog and the screen shots. Here is what I did so far:

 

1 - plug in new disk, on boot up, system detected new disk and I check "I'm sure want to do this" box and hit the Start button.

2 - refresh the UI, disk 2 is still Unformatted just like before.

3 - hit the Format button to format the new drive.

4 - refresh the screen, disk is still unformatted. <== probably should reboot at this point.

5 - stop the array and run mkreiserfs -q to format the disk manually.

6 - reboot the system.

7 - disk 2 is now formatted but the array is stopped, so hit the Start button to rebuild the array.

8 - refresh the screen, the array is still stopped, no rebuilding or anything.

 

What should I do now? I'm still on 4.4.2, so what does the "Refresh" button do? Does it re-initialize the array? Will that get the re-building process started?

 

Thanks,

Jaz

 

syslog.zip

Refresh will only refresh your screen...

 

At the moment you have two red balls (parity and disk2), rebuild can only work with one disk failing..

 

Without a green parity drive you will not be able to rebuild disk2 unfortuantely.

 

Make damn sure you are not having a cabling issue (try if all cables are properly seated, possibly check hot swap bays, try and replace the parity drives cable). If you cannot get the parity drive "up" it looks like you have lost the data on disk2 ..

 

Others please verify.. I'm not an expert..

I do have a backup of disk 2, so I do not mind losing the current parity data if I can get the array up and running again. What is the procedure to turn the Parity drive green, so I can copy the data back to the new drive WITHOUT losing any other drives' data of course, I am very nervous as you can imagine. :'(

 

I am thinking to use the "trust parity" procedure, would it be ok if disk 2 is new? Or will I really mess it up?

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Make_unRAID_Trust_the_Parity_Drive,_Avoid_Rebuilding_Parity_Unnecessarily

 

Jaz

HDParm.txt

smartctl.txt

The parity (and the new disk) have Orange not Red balloons (disk 2 is shown in the screen shot as missing with a Red balloon, only because I Un-assigned it from the array) - but I still cannot start the array. Could someone please advise me the safest way to get the array started. There is nothing on the new disk 2 and I do have a backup for it.

 

Thanks,

Jaz

 

check the check-box under the "Start" button. That should enable it.  then press the "Start" button.

check the check-box under the "Start" button. That should enable it.  then press the "Start" button.

 

Thanks Joe, but the parity still has the orange ball after checking the box and hitting the Start button. Then, I also tried assigning disk 2 back to the array, but that only bought the system back to its original state - orange balls next to Parity and Disk 2 (which is still Unformatted, even though I did format it earlier).

 

What I don't get is why the Parity has orange ball, since the smart report says it does not have any error on it... Anyway, what is the proper procedure to do a force re-write of the Parity drive? I am thinking that by removing disk 2 out of the array and re-writing the Parity, afterwards, adding disk 2 back into the array will do the trick, no? Other suggestions are much appreciated... It's already been a week, and I am still no closer to solving this problem. :'(

 

Thanks,

Jaz

 

 

[small bump, sorry]

 

I would like to try the following procedure, could someone please comment if I am going in the right direction (or not)?

 

1 - un-assign disk 2 from array, remove disk 2 from pc;

2 - reboot the server, stop the array;

3 - run preclear_disk on the Parity drive;

4 - reboot the server.

 

I am hoping that by erasing the existing parity info, upon reboot, the server will recognize it as a new Parity disk and begin to re-write the parity info. Afterwards, the Parity disk should get a green ball. If so, then I could add disk 2 back into the array, and manually copy the data from an external disk. Make sense?

 

Jaz

 

Use the Restore button.

Use the Restore button.

 

Just to make sure, do you mean to use the Restore button with or without disc 2 in the array? Does it matter, since disc 2 is blank...?

 

Thanks,

Jaz

 

Does not matter. Disk2 will be cleared by unRAID which may take a long time. Or un-assign disk2 first, then hit restore. Pre-clear disk2 while parity is being generated and then add disk2. Restore may un-assign the disks so record the desired order first.

Does not matter. Disk2 will be cleared by unRAID which may take a long time. Or un-assign disk2 first, then hit restore. Pre-clear disk2 while parity is being generated and then add disk2. Restore may un-assign the disks so record the desired order first.

 

Many thanks for your suggestion, will get started now!

 

Jaz

 

The array is finally up, so Restore (or init-config) was the way to get the Parity disk back up. Looking back, I think the the tripped breaker caused some errors on disk 2 and the Parity disk, but I still don't know what caused it since I was away on vacation. So to be safe, I will now shut off the server whenever I go on a long trip...

 

Thanks,

Jaz