Hey all,

 

My array has been dead in the water for a few months now and instead of restarting the trouble-shooting, I've decided to upgrade to new components and go from there. I know that it is possible to download a linux OS and burn it to a CD, but what do you all suggest? I have no interest installing anything onto a computer at this time and just want to boot off a CD and access my hard drives and start copying all the data off my old unRAID drives to the new server.

 

Thank you!

-Mike 

Any will do, I like "SLAX" it is a release also built on Slackware.  Ubunto is probably as easy.

 

But rather than either of those,just use unRAID on a spare flash drive.  It is far easier than almost any other because it allows you to easily set up shared drives on the LAN.  Yes, the free version only allows three disks, but you can copy your data off, three disks at a time.  You do NOT need to assign a parity drive, and probably should not.

 

If you have more than three data drives, just stop, un-assign one, and assign another.

 

Just DO NOT format any drive.  (you should not be prompted to format a drive, but just in case, if prompted to check a box to format a drive, do not.  Reboot instead.)

 

Joe L.

Another option is Sidux. Its a  live CD with excellent hardware support. I consider it a must have in the CD box. Superb when installed as a desktop distro as well.

Or you can use your windows box and install the reiserfs driver for it.

 

 

Or you can use your windows box and install the reiserfs driver for it.

 

 

 

Didn't know about this driver. I guess it's time to ask Google about it  

 

Thank you all for the info! Just ordered all my new hardware and I am excited to get an array up and running!

Check out THIS linik.  The second line is a link to the post you are looking for.

 

I tend to agre with Joe L., however, that the easiest way is likely to just boot off of an unRAID USB stick and mount your drives a couple at a time.  Leave the parity slot empty and all you're doing is making it easy to access your reiserfs drives over the network.