Red ball during Reiser -> XFS conversions. Unsure on parity

[glave]

I've been slowly converting my drives this past week, going by the wiki:

 

The gist of it is:

Prepare a new empty drive, formatted with XFS, that is as large or larger than the largest data drive

Copy the entire contents of the largest Reiser-formatted drive to it, and check for a perfect copy

Format that source drive with XFS, and continue with step 2, repeating steps 2 and 3 until done

When all drives are done, and the last Reiser drive re-formatted, you have a choice:

Correct all of the drive includes and excludes for all shares, plus all other drive references

Or use New Config to re-assign all drives back to their original drive number (marking parity as valid)

 

I've completed about 9 drive conversions, with 8 being left. I haven't gotten around to the last bit of changing drive include/excludes or doing new config.  What happened was, I converted drive13 a few days back, having copied all of its contents to drive2, I changed it's format to xfs and then copied drive6 on it, etc, etc. That was a few days ago...    Today drive 13 threw 4 errors and red balled out while I was rsync'ing from drive5 to drive3.

 

Honestly, the last step in the process has confused me. Is my parity currently valid? I don't have exclusive drives, they are all available to all shares. If my parity is NOT valid, then how can I recover my now dead drive13?

[garycase]

I don't understand the fascination with converting everything from a perfectly good file system (Reiser) to another ... but that's neither here 'nor there.

 

In any event, what you've had is a simple drive failure, and the conversion process you're doing has nothing to do with it.    You replace that drive just like you would any other failed drive.    Yes, your parity SHOULD still be valid, as long as it was valid when you last tested it (hopefully not too long ago).    In any event, it's too late to test/correct it now.

 

At this point you just need to Stop the array; unassign the failed drive from drive #13; Start the array so it shows a "missing" drive #13;  Stop the array again and assign a new drive to #13 (preferably one you've tested -- either via pre-clear or the manufacturer's diagnostics);  Start the array ... and let it rebuild drive #13.