This story is going to sound like a bit of time paradox in its complexity so hopefully some of you smart people out there will follow and tell me where I went wrong.

 

I'm running 5.0 and had finished preclearing my old 2TB parity drive (will now be referred to as 2TBP) and a new 3TB data drive (3TBN).  I wanted to replace my 1TB Data Drive (1TBD) with 2TBP and ultimately make 1TBD a cache drive.

1. I backed up my entire Flash drive and stopped the array.

2. I selected 'new config' and put 2TBP into the slot previously occupied by 1TBD.

3. I formatted the drive and ran a parity check.  (I thought at this point the former data on 1TBD would have been copied on to 2TBP but this didn't happen).

4. I restarted the array and ran another parity check.

5. Got back home and the slot previously occupied by 1TBD is now occupied by 2TBP and it is showing pretty much 2TB available.

6. I stopped the array and physically disconnected 1TBD (thinking maybe unRaid was confused).

7. Started the array back up and no change, the data from the drive is essentially gone.

 

I haven't copied anything to the array since and a verification shows that data is indeed missing.

 

I'm thinking that my mistake was when I had intended to replace the drive that I needed to completely remove it from the array before having a drive take its place.  Hoping someone can verify this 

 

But my real question is, how can I get the data back?  I thought about adding the drive back into the array into its old spot but of course I am no paranoid.  I have also not touched 3TBN for fear that any other additions to the array will be irreparable.  I also still have the backup of Flash that I made but I'm not sure of the consequence of just copying it all back without changing the drive order or something.

 

Would greatly appreciate any and all suggestions.  Thanks.

Your mistake was doing a "New Config" => that tells the system it's a new configuration 

 

If you had not done that, then all you had to do was Stop the array; unassign the 1TB drive;  restart the array so it showed a "Missing" drive;  Stop the array and assign your 2TB drive;  and then Start the array again => the data from the 1TB drive would have then been rebuild onto the new, larger 2TB drive.

 

If you have not done anything with the 1TB drive at this point, you can attach it to a Windows PC;  install the free LinuxReader so you can read the ReiserFS file system [ http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/ ]; and then copy all the data from it to your array [this will take a long time].

 

You could also simply add the 1TB drive back into the array -- but if you do this you MUST do a New Config ==> otherwise UnRAID will clear the drive before adding it.

 

Firstly, thank you!  Cried when I read your first reply then smiled upon the second one.  Will unRaid associate things properly, i.e. act like nothing happened?

 

And please confirm my steps, just paranoid now:

1. remember drive assignments

2. stop array

3. select new config

4. assign all drives and add the old 1TB as the new one

5. restart and parity check

6. pray

 

When you do a New Config, it's exactly that -- a NEW configuration.

 

That will, of course, require a new parity sync => so if you have any doubts about the integrity of your OTHER drives, do a parity check NOW before you do the new config ... since once you do that you won't be able to recover anything until a new parity sync is done.

 

The SAFEST way to do this is to do a New Config but do NOT assign a parity drive.  Then Start the array and confirm that everything's the way you want it ==> and THEN Stop the array; assign your parity drive; and then Start it again so it can do a parity sync.    When the parity sync is finished, do a parity check to confirm all went well.

 

 

By the way, UnRAID (or any other RAID system) is NOT a backup.    If you have data you don't want to lose, you should always have it backed up !!

 

Followed your directions, came home today to a very happy server.  All files recovered, array has been expanded by 4 TB (total) and I now have a 1TB drive available for my new cache drive.  Thanks for all of your help.

 

Now, is there a cheat sheet for using the New Config command?

Glad it's all working.    I'm not aware of a "New Config" cheat sheet ==> just remember that it does what it says -- a NEW configuration.    i.e. your old configuration will be GONE.    It's actually pretty rare that you'd want to do this ... but in some circumstances (such as the one you got yourself into) it can be a life-saver, since it let you add a drive full of data back into your array.