February 3, 200917 yr Hi, can somebody help me? im in fear of losing data, I have a setup with 4 Disk + Parity the problem its that disk3 failed, i pulled it out of the array and i was able to access the contents of the disk normally from unRaid (from parity), i replaced the disk and began the Rebuild process, but i canceled it and shutdown because i wanted to close my case, and wen i started unRaid again the parity drive has the blue dot, so now i have the new Disk3 and Parity in Blue,, what i can do to force unRaid to accept the parity data as valid an rebuild the failed disk with it? Thanks in advance Sorry by the bad English
February 3, 200917 yr what i can do to force unRaid to accept the parity data as valid an rebuild the failed disk with it? First step might be to post your syslog so people can review the hardware. http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting#Capturing_your_syslog
February 3, 200917 yr The good news is that there is a way to recover from this. The 'mdcmd set invalidslot <n>' command, as others have pointed out, may be used to alter the behavior of the unRAID driver when Starting a "new" array. It defines which slot should start out as having "invalid data". Normally this is always slot 0 (parity). But if you have lost the super.dat file, and you know that parity is valid, but some other slot has an invalid or missing disk, you can use this command to indicate this. By using a value (like 99) which is larger than the highest possible slot number, it has the effect of having all the slots come up "valid". The bad news is that I am not aware of anyone ever doing it exactly this way. The basic procedure (linked in next paragraph) has been used successfully by several people including myself. The changing of the invalidslot is something no one (that I am aware of) has done. Keep good notes if / when you do this. I'd follow these basic directions, but instead of issuing the command "mdcmd set invalidslot 99", you would issue the command "mdcmd set invalidslot 3" (assuming disk3 is the disk you want rebuilt.) This SHOULD cause the array to come online and "trust" the parity, disk1, disk2, and disk4 - and rebuild the disk3. Make sure you are prepared to let it complete. Again, this is a procedure I have never done myself, and is based solely on the post from limetech above. Before proceeding to do this .... 1. Confirm that the right disks are in the right slots. Make absolutely sure that the parity disk is in the parity slot and your new disk is in the disk3 slot! Make sure that it didn't somehow shuffle parity with the new disk3. 2. Post a screenshot of your "Main" unRAID web page showing the current setup (blue dot beside parity). 3. Post the syslog that WeeboTech suggested. 4. Read the procedure and the quoted section above several times to make sure you agree that this is the right thing to do. If you have questions ask them! 5. I would hold off doing this immediately to give others a chance to comment. Let one or two other people confirm that they agree with me on this before proceeding ...
February 3, 200917 yr Author Heres is the screenshot, thanks for the responses, bjp999 im going to wait if somebody can complement your idea with something more as you recommend. Clipboard01.gif Thanks
February 3, 200917 yr Can you confiirm that parity is a 750G Seagate drive? (It appears that is the only choice because if its size). Can you confirrm that the replacement for the failed disk3 is a 250G Seagate drive? And NOT a 250G/300G Maxtor?
February 4, 200917 yr Brian's plan sounds reasonable to me, and I think it will work, but it hasn't been well tested yet. I would add one initial step, backup the flash drive to somewhere safe, in particular, the super.dat and disk.cfg files in the config folder of your unRAID flash. What I mean by 'not well tested', is that I too am not aware of anyone doing it this way, but Tom (Lime Technology) himself is the one who suggested it, and implied it was for a case like this. Many of us *have* used the Trust My Array procedure that Brian pointed to, multiple times, so I do think this variation of it *should* work. And if it does not seem to work correctly, we can restore those files back to the flash config folder, and try another method. If you don't mind my asking, what actually happened with the previous Disk 3. Sometimes when users report a 'failed disk', their drive may not have actually completely failed. It may be useful here to know the degree or type of failure, that is, does it spin up at all, spins but unresponsive, spins but noisy and clicking, works but unacceptable SMART parameters, etc. If it works but ought to be replaced, then if need be, we could use it to restore the array, then remove it and rebuild Disk 3, just the way you were doing. By the way, is there any chance you have a backup of your flash drive, just before this problem?
February 4, 200917 yr Author WeeboTech, bjp999, RobJ Thanks all for your valuable help, i was able to recover my data with your instructions, with the commands the parity drive was forced valid and began the rebuild in disk3, Im loving unRaid, only a pair of request, Please make the interface provide more information and feedback, Can i ask for Webmin be included? package manager, something to make unRaid provide more services, Lots of more little tools, maybe beginning with a console widget in the main page, Make the power button in the computer case shutdown the machine cleanly (this had to be since the beginning of unRaid) Provide support for using other file systems, (i don't know why but i fear ReiserFs) I really want Rsync Thanks a lot and continue this amazing work.
February 4, 200917 yr WeeboTech, bjp999, RobJ Thanks all for your valuable help, i was able to recover my data with your instructions, with the commands the parity drive was forced valid and began the rebuild in disk3, Im loving unRaid, only a pair of request, Please make the interface provide more information and feedback, Can i ask for Webmin be included? package manager, something to make unRaid provide more services, Lots of more little tools, maybe beginning with a console widget in the main page, Make the power button in the computer case shutdown the machine cleanly (this had to be since the beginning of unRaid) Provide support for using other file systems, (i don't know why but i fear ReiserFs) I really want Rsync Thanks a lot and continue this amazing work. You can add this to unRAID for better power control http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2781.msg22884#msg22884 You can add this to unRAID for additional management review http://code.google.com/p/unraid-unmenu/ rsync is already supported. You either need to update /etc/inetd.conf or add ssh.
February 4, 200917 yr WeeboTech, bjp999, RobJ Thanks all for your valuable help, i was able to recover my data with your instructions, with the commands the parity drive was forced valid and began the rebuild in disk3, Im loving unRaid, only a pair of request, Please make the interface provide more information and feedback, Can i ask for Webmin be included? package manager, something to make unRaid provide more services, Lots of more little tools, maybe beginning with a console widget in the main page, Make the power button in the computer case shutdown the machine cleanly (this had to be since the beginning of unRaid) Provide support for using other file systems, (i don't know why but i fear ReiserFs) I really want Rsync Thanks a lot and continue this amazing work. Glad that worked for you! Anyone reading, if you start a drive rebuild, make sure you are prepared to let it finish! Mike, WeeboTech provided you some very useful links. Please realize that we are just forum members like you, and that these materials are not from Limetech. They are just some components built by forum members and provided on an "as-is" basis. Make sure to read the Faq and Best of the Forums. They will teach you alot about keeping your system running smoothly. Continued good luck!
February 4, 200917 yr You may find the UnRAID Add Ons wiki page helpful, although it is very incomplete as yet.
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