So I got way too excited to add the drives into the array that I forgot that I am not supposed to add to an array before first copying the data over.

 

I was doing a clean new build, added drives to the array and was just pushing buttons, started the array.

 

I never formatted the drives, I stopped there, got rid of the array. i now have a empty drive in the array and I want to copy my data from the old drive on the array disk, but I cant access the data anymore through windows.

 

How do I fix this? Am I hooped?

WAY too little information to help.

 

What version of UnRAID?  [basic, Plus, or Pro, and the version #]

 

What drives have you added to the array?

 

Have you assigned a parity drive?

 

WHAT data are you planning to copy before adding more drives ... and WHY do you think you have to copy it first?

 

 

I'm using UnRAID basic, and latest version

 

I basically have 4 drives, 2 new 4TB drives and 2 old 2TB drives. The old drives have data on them.

 

When I first got it up and running, I wasn't being smart about it, and added the 2 old 2 TB drives into an array and started it. I realized I had the wrong 2 drives, I wanted to start clean slate. Also I thought you have to have formatted drives to add to the array?

 

I didn't assign a parity drive.

 

Am I wrong about having to format the drives first?

 

 

I'm using UnRAID basic, and latest version

 

I basically have 4 drives, 2 new 4TB drives and 2 old 2TB drives. The old drives have data on them.

 

Is the data on the 2TB drives from UnRAID?  If not, then you can't simply add these drives to the array.

 

 

...  added the 2 old 2 TB drives into an array and started it.

 

If you checked the box that said it was okay to format the drives and then Started the array, you have probably already lost all the data on those drives.    Hopefully that's not the case ... but you should connect these drives to a system that can read them and see if your data is still there.

If, on the other hand, they are from a previous version of UnRAID, then you're fine.

 

 

Am I wrong about having to format the drives first?

 

It depends on where the drives were being used before.  If they're from a previous version of UnRAID and are already formatted with ReiserFS, then you don't need to format them.    If they are from a Windows box with NTFS, or a Mac with one of the Mac file systems, then Yes, they need to be formatted.

 

 

It sounds like you want to do something like this:

 

(a)  If your 2TB drives are NOT in ReiserFS format ...

 

=>  Assign one of your 4TB drives as a data drive; and the other as parity.    Start the array, and let it format the data drive and do the initial parity sync (many hours).    When that's done, you can copy the data across your network from the old drives.

 

=>  When you've got all of the data copied to the array, Stop the array and shut down.  Install one of the 2TB drives in the UnRAID system;  boot it;  Stop the array and add the 2TB drive to the array.    UnRAID will clear the disk; then add it to the array (this takes many hours).

 

Done :-)

 

 

 

(b)  If your 2TB drives ARE in ReiserFS format ...

 

=>  Assign one of your 4TB drives as a data drive;  and one of the 2TB drives as a data drive.  (But no parity drive)

 

=>  Start the array and let it format the 4TB drive.    Now copy all of the data from the 2TB drive to the 4TB drive.

 

=>  Stop the array and do a New Config (on the Settings menu).  Assign the 4TB data drive you were just using, and the OTHER 2TB drive as the 2nd data drive.    Now assign the other 4TB drive as parity.    Start the array, and let it do a parity sync.

 

Done :-)

 

 

If the old drives that had data on them were NOT in reiserFS format then I have a feeling that starting the array is likely to have rewritten the partition table to the style that unRAID wants.  This is likely to be different to what was there before.

 

If this is the case, as long as you have NOT told unRAID to format the drives it should still be possible to recover the data.  The exact steps to take will depend on what format the drives were before you added them.  As an example there have been others who have done this with NTFS format drives from a Windows system, and they were able to find tools that could recover all the data.

Yeah I made sure not to format the drive, but I did start the Array which from what I read, probably changed the partition table.

 

The format of the drives were NTFS before. Itimpi, would you happen to know where you saw this example of how the person recovered the data?

Yeah I made sure not to format the drive, but I did start the Array which from what I read, probably changed the partition table.

 

The format of the drives were NTFS before. Itimpi, would you happen to know where you saw this example of how the person recovered the data?

The thread I was thinking of was this one.  Whether there are other ways of achieving the same end result I have no idea.

Thanks for the help.

 

Found a program called DiskInternals Linux Reader that was easily able to access the partition through my Windows desktop and save it to the unRaid array.

 

 

Sounds like you've already recovered the data you need, but just in case that's not true ...

 

Some of the better recovery tools to use in Windows to restore a partition table are ...

 

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

 

http://www.partition-recovery.com/

 

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

 

http://www.krollontrack.com/data-recovery/recovery-software/windows/

 

I've used all of these ... the first two are the best if all you need to do is restore the partition table;  the latter two are better if there's further MFT corruption and/or the file structure has been damaged.