After running Unraid for 4 years thanks to the help and advice on this forum, I have a problem I cannot seem to resolve. I was running the latest beta release until ...

 

1. My five year old son managed to bend the Unraid USB key and it is not working reliably. - gets hot. machine will not boot etc.

2. I have tried to make a replacement USB Key from a backup, copying over my licence key.

 

But machine will not boot.

 

Appreciate your help in how to fix?

 

 

Your registration key is tied to the GUID of the USB flash drive. You need to read the GUID of your replacement USB drive and request a replacement registration key from Lime Tech.

 

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware_Compatibility#USB_Flash_Drives

After running Unraid for 4 years thanks to the help and advice on this forum, I have a problem I cannot seem to resolve. I was running the latest beta release until ...

 

1. My five year old son managed to bend the Unraid USB key and it is not working reliably. - gets hot. machine will not boot etc.

2. I have tried to make a replacement USB Key from a backup, copying over my licence key.

 

But machine will not boot.

 

Appreciate your help in how to fix?

The machine should boot - just not recognize the key until you can get one from LimeTech that matches the GUID of the USB stick you now intend to use.    You need to sort out the booting issue before requesting the replacement key just in case the USB drive you are now trying to use will not work correctly for unRAID.

 

LimeTech currently have an offer for a second key for $30.  This was intended primarily to help those who wanted to test V6 on a different USB drive but is also a way of comparatively cheaply  getting a backup for exactly the scenario you now face.

I really suggest going with (Kingston) MobileLite USB readers. Both G2 and G3 version work fine.. I'm using two of the G3s here. This way, you can swap the boot drive easily with other SD cards if you want to test different unraid version, have an extra microsd card clone ready to go if anything on the original goes wrong, expand to larger SD card if needed in the future, etc.

Thanks all for your help. Definiteley making progress.

 

I have now got the machine booting into UNRAID with a 2nd USB.

 

I have also ordered a 2nd key to work with this new USB.

 

The machine boots showing unraid stopped with an invalid configuration.

 

i assume this is beacause none of my prior share configuration is on the new key.

 

I have a backup of the old key which I hope is current.

 

Can you advise which files I need to copy over from the backup of my original key to the new key to restore my previous unraid configuration?

 

Many Thanks

 

 

 

 

Thanks all for your help. Definiteley making progress.

 

I have now got the machine booting into UNRAID with a 2nd USB.

 

I have also ordered a 2nd key to work with this new USB.

 

The machine boots showing unraid stopped with an invalid configuration.

 

i assume this is beacause none of my prior share configuration is on the new key.

 

I have a backup of the old key which I hope is current.

 

Can you advise which files I need to copy over from the backup of my original key to the new key to restore my previous unraid configuration?

 

Many Thanks

The key file is just your license to use unRAID for a specific USB drive. unRAID checks it and if it validates against the GUID of the USB drive you have unRAID installed on, you get to use unRAID with whatever license level you have purchased.

 

The key does not contain any of your configuration other than that.

 

The config folder contains all of your configuration. In particular, the file super.dat is your array configuration. This is where unRAID keeps track of the drives you have assigned, parity status, running status, maybe some other things I'm not aware of. There are also a number of .cfg files that contain settings you have made in the webGUI. If you have configured any user shares, there is also a shares folder in the config folder which contains a .cfg with the settings you have made for any user shares you have configured.