My last unraid system stopped booting after I updated to 4.3, so I just grabbed a few new hard drives and started a new system using the same hardware. It was running out of space so I needed new drives anyway.  It now boots and is online. So how do I transfew the data from the old disks onto the new disks? Will windows explorer be able to read the disks so I can transfer them through LAN?

 

Thanks!

CNV

I am not exactly sure I understand your situation, but if you are asking if you can install an unRAID data disk in a Windows machine and read the files on it, then do a forum search for rfstool, and you will find a number of threads that should help.

RobJ,

 

Thanks for the reply. I'll try to explain it better... 

 

I have hard drives that still contain data from my old unRaid system and want to transfer them onto my new unRaid system. How should I do this?

 

How does rfstool work? I'm a complete noob so please bear with me. I downloaded rfstool from a link found on the forums, so what do I do from here after I hooked up the hard drive to my Vista machine?

 

Thanks!

CNV

Wouldn't it just be easier, and much faster, to add the old disk to the new array and transfer the files to your new drives using Midnight Commander?  Or are you saying that your system will not boot if you add your old drives?

 

But to answer your question, here is a link discussing this topic.  It links to some GUI front ends for rsftools and also suggest just using an Ubuntu liveCD instead of windows.

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2057.msg14950#msg14950

I agree with xbit's answers.  I took a look at the rfstool Usage page, and it is usable, but not particularly convenient to use, and appears to be limited to one Reiser partition at a time.  I don't think I would install more than one unRAID drive at a time in your Windows machine.

 

It would be much easier, to add the drives to your unRAID machine, and read and copy the data directly.  If you have not assigned a parity drive, then it is really easy.  Just install the drive(s) and assign them to the array, and Start the array.

 

If you have a parity drive assigned, and want to preserve parity, it is a little harder, and you can't assign them to the array.  Refer to the Copy files from a NTFS drive page, only substitute reiserfs for ntfs and vfat, and skip the modprobe.  Mounting an external USB drive may also have some tips.  For more tips and help with Midnight Commander, see Transferring Files Within the unRAID Server.

RobJ,

 

I already have a parity drive assigned, but don't see a reason why I would want to preserve it. So adding the drives and assigning them to the array sounds the easiest. How would I go about doing this if I have a 3 drive unRaid server running (1 parity, one drive with data, one empty) and 3 other uninstalled drives full of data from my old unRaid server. Thanks a ton. CNV

From the FAQ it looks like you just have to add them to unRAID.  It'll recognize that the file system is ReiserFS and allow you to add them w/o formatting.  You'll probably still have to assign the drives in the web management page before you can access the them. 

 

 

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=FAQ#How_do_I_recover_data_from_an_unRAID_disk.3F

If using the free version of unRAID, you might only be able to assign 2 data disks on the device assignment page.

 

You might be able to shuffle around the disks as needed to have one "new" disk, and one from which you are copying data, or

 

If you are unix type, create mount points for your old disks, mount them outside of the unRAID array, and then use midnight commander (or the "cp" command) to copy your files.

 

to make mount points:

mkdir /mnt/old_disk1

mkdir /mnt/old_disk2

 

To mount the old disk on the mount point

mount -t reiserfs -o noatime,nodiratime /dev/sdX1 /mnt/old_disk1

mount -t reiserfs -o noatime,nodiratime /dev/hdX1 /mnt/old_disk2

 

Now, you will need to substitute for sdX1 and hdX1 the correct device names, always specifying partition 1 on the disk.  So, if the old drive is /dev/hdg then use /dev/hdg1 in the mount command, if the old device is detected as /dev/sdc, then use /dev/sdc1 in the mount command.

 

Note, these newly mounted disks will not be visible over the LAN as they are not part of the shared drives under SAMBA.  Use "putty" as your telnet client, and then use "mc" (midnight commander) to move your files.  The files on them will be accessible at /mnt/old_disk1 and /mnt/old_disk2.

 

Joe L.