Been running 4.7 fine for a while now.  Had the disk idle issue on some drives to my LLC or what not was over 400k, so I wanted ot be proactive and just replace the drives before they fail.

 

I took my first drive, precleared it in another system (v5 - test system) and was ready to start re-building it when during boot I got the following:

 

VFS: Cannot open Root device "<NULL>" or unknown block (8,1)

 

Please append a correct "root=" boot option, here are the available partitions:

 

Kernel Panic - Not Synching: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (8,1)

 

Pid: 1, comm: swapper not tainted 2.6.32.9 -unraid #8

 

Call Trace

 

then there is a bunch more junk...

 

I read on a few other posts about older versions that the issue is on the usb and the formatting.  However, this was working for the longest time.  Totally freaking out since I was in the middle of replacing a drive and now I dont know what to do to get the system back as well as the disk re-built?  Should I replace the original drive for the time being until I get this issue resolved?  I so hope it is an easy fix.  Thanks!

 

I see there are some posts that do reference 5.0 even and my test system is 5.0, but it was never added to the array or anything, strictly just ran preclear -A and thats it, didnt think it made a difference at that point.  The only thing I could try is adding back the old drive but for now the system is powered off as await advice

OK, as a test before leaving the house this morning.  I put back the drive I was replacing just to make sure it was nothing to do with the pre-clear being run on a v5 Unraid system.  The results were the same, therefore, I am now suspecting the issue resides at my flash drive.

 

Did the flash go bad?

Did one of the files just become corrupted?

Whatever the answer, is my data at risk?

Where do I start in an effort to get my system back online?

OK, as a test before leaving the house this morning.  I put back the drive I was replacing just to make sure it was nothing to do with the pre-clear being run on a v5 Unraid system.  The results were the same, therefore, I am now suspecting the issue resides at my flash drive.

 

Did the flash go bad?

Did one of the files just become corrupted?

Whatever the answer, is my data at risk?

Where do I start in an effort to get my system back online?

Your data is not at risk.  Your first step should be to put the flash drive on a window's PC and run checkdisk/scandisk on it.

It might be possible to simply fix it and continue. 

 

Yes, flash drives go bad.  They have a limited number of "write" cycles, somewhere between 10,000 and 1,000,000.  Typically, 100,000 is given as a specification.  If you are constantly writing to the flash drive, it will eventually fail.  unRAID typically only writes to the flash drive on configuration changes and when starting/stopping the array. 

 

If fixing the flash drive does not work, you can try to re-format and re-load it, just save your .key file that holds your unRAID license so you can out it back into place after formatting.  In the same way, if you can grab the contents of the "config" folder, it can be replaced and you'll not have to re-assign the disks in the array to their respective slots.

 

Worst case, send an e-mail to [email protected] with the GUID of a new flash drive pointing him to this thread.  He'll typically send a new .key file for the new flash drive so you can get back up and running.   

 

If you do need to re-assign the disks, the only critical one is the parity disk.  If you are unsure which is the parity disk, leave it un-assigned at first and assign everything as a data disk.  One disk (the parity disk) will then show as un-formatted.  Simply then assign it as parity.    If multiple appear as unformatted, seek guidance, DO NOT FORMAT ANY DRIVE.

 

Joe L.

OK, so if I am understanding, it could be a corrupt flash which windows might just fix.  Because it starts the boot process I must assume it is not dead.

 

Either way, even if it is recovered, should I consider replacement?

 

In the event that windows fails at helping me and I cannot recover any data from the drive, then that is the worst case part I assume.

 

Luckily I printed the disk config prior to starting last night, so I would be able to re-assign if needed, lets hope not.  I hope to have some time late tonight.  I will post my findings.  Fingers crossed for a simple check disk

It could also be RAM, and not the flash drive at all. 

To be sure, run a memtest, for several cycles, preferably overnight

(for it you can use an alternate flash drive if you cannot get the one on your existing flash drive to load)

OK, so I ran a check disk and it said it found and fixed and error, but still the same issue remains.

 

Windows sees it and everything looks normal, so I am not sure what to think.

 

time to format and see if I cant get everything back like that?

 

Can I copy off all content, format prep and copy data back?

just ran a quick test.  Attempted to boot the flash in a random computer and things fail in the same spot.  Therefore, it is assumed I need to attempt to format as a next step and got from there.

 

Is it worth going to 5 from this point or wait till I know I am functioning again?

formatted my flash drive, copied files over, ran make boot and restored all the directories that werent otherwise there.

 

I put in the new drive that will be rebuilt and powered up

 

Now, system boots and I can ping it, but I cannot reach the web gui.

 

edit:

 

poke around a bit more and found that my go script is corrupt.  Curious if there is anything that can be done to recover it, if not, I start again.

 

Other than that, I am back up and running.  data is rebuilding to the new disk.

 

In the end it appears that the likely issue is my flash got jacked and in turn it messed up my go script.  Once I formatted and installed 4.7 clean and booted with my configuration,  it would not boot with my go script. So I went back to the default and have to just now install everything from scratch. Heck,  might be a good time to upgrade to 5.  Thoughts?  Seems pretty safe,  no?

 

Long story short,  check disk did say it fixed something on the flash,  so not sure if that was part of it or not,  but the main issue in the end was a corrupt go script.