I upgraded my two drive unraid system the other day. i had two drives 500gb each. parity 500gb disk1 500gb. i upgraded both with 2tb drives (parity 2tb disk one 2tb) all was good until one day i moved my unraid system and i have damaged my usb stick. to the point were i cannot boot from it or get files off of it  and i dont have a copy of my files. the only copy i have is a old backed up copy when i had my 500gb setup. i have a new usb stick now and i put my backed up files onto it and it booted ok however when i login to unraids web gui it says Too many wrong and/or missing disks!

i have gone into disc devices and set the correct parity drive and disk1 as luckily i remembered there serials but my unraid wont let me start the array.i dont even see any options

i will attach pictures and my usb boot files. i really hope someone can help me out as i hope i haven't lost all my files in my shares

 

i have unmenu installed if this helps

unraid 4.7

You will have to do a new configuration. You will have to search on how to do that with 4.7. I think it might require you to do it from the command line.

 

Better yet would be to do a new install of the latest unRAID and start from scratch since you have already lost your configuration. Just make sure you don't assign your data disk to the parity slot and you will be OK.

that sounds like a good idea. do i simply install the latest version of unraid onto a usb stick then copy my share files over to it ? 

Do not worry - you will not have lost any data as long as you do not do anything stupid at this stage, and the drives are not damaged.

 

The problem is that it looks as if your backup is from before you added the 2TB drives, so the system is thinking that you have the wrong disks installed.

 

Are you using any plugins other than unMenu? 

 

If not then I would think the easiest thing to do will be to create a new USB stick with the 5.05 release installed on it.  You can then assign the drives as you want.  UNRAID will detect that drives already have data on them, so when you start the array you should immediately see the data.    If any drive shows as "Unformatted" do NOT format it as this means you probably messed up in some way, so check back here for guidance.

Thakyou ok so ill install latest version of unraid onto new usb stick and boot from it.

i had a couple of share folders. am i right in thinking when i boot with a new version of unraid wont know i have any share folders but this would be ok ? or do i copy my share files into the new usb stick ?

Any shares you had will be there, but they will have default settings. You will have to go into the webGUI and change them if you don't want the defaults. You can use your backup to examine the .cfg files in the config folder and in config/shares to see how you had things set before.

Thankyou. i have installed latest version and im now booted into unraid 5.0.5

i have selected my parity and disk1 is it safe for me to click start ?

I would un-assign the parity, and then mount the array just to confirm.

OK i started it and i can now access all my share folders. Thank you so much for your help. i am so happy now i have my files back and my nraid back up and running

i cannot thank you enough!!

 

 

Now you can stop the array and assign parity.

 

When is the last time you did a parity check?

 

After you assign parity, you could check the box for "Parity is already valid". If you don't it will rebuild parity.

 

Even if you do tell it parity is valid, you could run a non-correcting parity check after you get it started to make sure everything is OK.

i did a parity check 2days ago. i will do another one over night to night. just wanted to ask.

when i click on my unraid in networks there is 2 folders. disk1 and flash. when i click on disk1 all my share folders are in there

 

how can i hide these folders and just have my share folders there ? im new to this version so im unsure what settings to do

I assume you are using SMB. I think that is enabled by default. If not, on the Settings tab under Network Services, you can enable SMB, NFS, AFP.

 

On the main page, click on Disk 1. This will take you to the settings for that disk. Under SMB (NFS, AFP) Security Settings, set Export to No.

 

Do the same for Flash. You can also set these to Yes (hidden) and you won't be able to see them but you can still access them as \\tower\flash for example.

 

Then under the Settings tab, Share Settings, set Enable User Shares to Yes.

 

Then under the Shares tab, you should see each of your user shares. These are just the top level folders of your array (and cache) disks. You can configure each of these by clicking on their names.

Thankyou ever so much! i can now enjoy my unraid for many more years. i honestly thought i lost all my pictures and files.

 

i like the new layout thought takes a while to get use to it. i had to do a restart for the disk1 to disappear after i set it to hidden

 

all in all everything is back up and running. just wanted to ask one one question. if i buy a key for my usb stick would this enable me to put passwords on each share folder ? that would be a nice add on. as each person in my home has there own folder so would be nice to have some privacy with a password.

 

... if i buy a key for my usb stick would this enable me to put passwords on each share folder ? that would be a nice add on. as each person in my home has there own folder so would be nice to have some privacy with a password.

Yes. Plus license is what I have and it has 3 security settings for each user share:

 

Public - anyone can read and write to the share, like in unRAID Free

 

Secure - anyone can read the share, but you can set who can write to it

 

Private - you can set who can read and write to the share

 

Just a quick comment. With only two drives, they will be perfect mirror images of each other. Same as RAID1.

Just a quick comment. With only two drives, they will be perfect mirror images of each other. Same as RAID1.

 

True ... due to the fact that UnRAID uses even parity.    But also somewhat irrelevant, as this will change as soon as a 3rd drive is added to the array.    It's also not managed like a RAID1 ... the computations are still done using XOR's, just like a RAID5.

 

Just a quick comment. With only two drives, they will be perfect mirror images of each other. Same as RAID1.

 

True ... due to the fact that UnRAID uses even parity.    But also somewhat irrelevant, as this will change as soon as a 3rd drive is added to the array.    It's also not managed like a RAID1 ... the computations are still done using XOR's, just like a RAID5.

 

Normally, if a flash is broken, the correct way to identify the parity it to put the disks into disk slots and the one that is unformatted is parity.

 

With a 2 disk array (parity + 1 data disk), they would both show formatted. And in fact either of them could be parity.

 

Seemed like there was a effort to determine which was data and which was parity. I was just trying to be helpful, I was not making a statement on the techniques involved - just that a 2 drive unRAID maintained 2 identical disks which is the same as what a RAID-1 pair would do.

 

Sorry you didn't find it relevant. I thought the people helping the OP might find it so.

 

Peace.

 

That makes sense -- although you might have noted that in your comment ... e.g. "... they will be perfect mirror images of each other so either can be assigned as the data drive."    The correlation with RAID-1 isn't relevant.

 

... and in fact, in this particular case, the OP wasn't having any issue with identifying the drives ...

... i have gone into disc devices and set the correct parity drive and disk1 as luckily i remembered there serials

...

With a 2 disk array (parity + 1 data disk), they would both show formatted. And in fact either of them could be parity.

 

Seemed like there was a effort to determine which was data and which was parity. I was just trying to be helpful, I was not making a statement on the techniques involved - just that a 2 drive unRAID maintained 2 identical disks which is the same as what a RAID-1 pair would do.

...

Does this mean that in this particular scenario it wouldn't matter which one was chosen as parity?

...

With a 2 disk array (parity + 1 data disk), they would both show formatted. And in fact either of them could be parity.

 

Seemed like there was a effort to determine which was data and which was parity. I was just trying to be helpful, I was not making a statement on the techniques involved - just that a 2 drive unRAID maintained 2 identical disks which is the same as what a RAID-1 pair would do.

...

Does this mean that in this particular scenario it wouldn't matter which one was chosen as parity?

 

I believe the answer is yes, but have never tested that theory.

 

If parity is only covering the partition and very low sectors (sector 0 for example) were not mirrored, the parity disk might not properly mount as the data disk. But I believe the entire volume is parity protected because ideas have come up to bury a tiny bit of info on the parity disk and there was no ability to do that.

 

So I'm 90% confident it would not matter.

 

This might be an opportunity to test by putting both disks in disk slots and see if they mount (if OP were interested).

Does this mean that in this particular scenario it wouldn't matter which one was chosen as parity?

 

Yes, that's correct.  Because UnRAID uses even parity, if you have a 2-drive array the drives will be absolutely identical as long as they are the same size drives.  It's simple:  Just think of the parity calculation for even parity => when you XOR all of the data drives together, the parity bit needs to be whatever's needed to produce an even result (i.e. a zero).    Since there's only one data drive, there are only two cases:  If the data is a 0, it needs to be XOR'd with a 0 to produce 0, so the parity bit is a zero;  if the data is a 1, it needs to be XOR'd with a 1 to produce 0, so the parity bit is a 1.  This is a consequence of a decision made at the birth of UnRAID to use even parity 

 

So EITHER drive could be assigned as the data drive; and the other one as the parity drive.

 

Edit:  Added "... as long as they are the same size drives." above.  When writing my next post I realized this caveat should be added.

 

 

If parity is only covering the partition and very low sectors (sector 0 for example) were not mirrored, the parity disk might not properly mount as the data disk. But I believe the entire volume is parity protected  ...

 

Absolutely the entire disk is parity protected.  The parity disk has no file system; no partitions; etc.  It's purely a bit-by-bit parity computed across the entire array, using even parity.  That's why it has to be at least as large as any other disk.

 

 

... I'm 90% confident it would not matter.

 

You can be 100% confident in this 

 

Remember, however (as I know you are aware), that this is absolutely an "edge case" -- it is ONLY true because UnRAID uses even parity AND this is a 2-disk array.

 

By the way, there is ONE situation where this wouldn't be true for a 2-disk array (but clearly not the case here):  If the two drives were not the same size 

You are certain that the disk and not the partition is protected? If so, what is your reasoning/evidence? I think you're right but have a small doubt so curious of your basis for being certain. UnRaid only HAS TO protect the partition and not the disk. On a rebuild, depending on the drive size, that partition might be rebuilt starting at a different disk sector. Thanks for your reply!

No doubt.  If you have doubts, just ask Tom for confirmation.  I'm well aware of how the parity mechanism works -- and it has nothing to do with what partitions are on the disk (or even if there are any).    It's simply a bit-by-bit parity applied across the entire array, with the disk on the parity bit being set to enforce even parity.

 

In order to restore the data on.a disk you need the partition not the physical disk. UnRaid supports restoring, for example, an MBR partition aligned at sector 64 to a GPT position aligned at sector 1. It is the partition that stores the data and unRaid could maintain parity on just the partitions and do everything it does.

 

As I.think about it, unRaid must maintain parity on the partition because doing a restore to a different disk starting sector would otherwise require a complete parity rebuild! I think I may have just convinced myself that parity mirrors the partition in a 2 disk configuration, but not non-partition sectors. The partition would be identical but not the disk. So I don't think they'd be interchangeable.