I moved my unraid into a rack mounted case that was bigger and had more fans for cooling. Unfortunately, when cabling up the fans (that were powered off the molex power connectors), I managed to fry two of the drives - the parity drive and one data drive. I sent the data drive off to a data recovery company who managed to image the data onto another drive. I then bought another 1TB drive to use as the new parity drive. I've succesfully added the replacement data drive and unraid has assigned it without problems. The parity drive has been connected up correctly and is recognised by the bios, but does not appear in unraid. Under the "Devices" heading, the parity is listed as 'unassigned', but the new drive does not appear in the drop down list. Will unraid automatically find and assign the new drive as 'parity' if I hit the 'restore' button? I presume that 'restore' is the correct thing to do, unless anyone thinks differently?

 

Thanks

Robert

I moved my unraid into a rack mounted case that was bigger and had more fans for cooling. Unfortunately, when cabling up the fans (that were powered off the molex power connectors), I managed to fry two of the drives - the parity drive and one data drive. I sent the data drive off to a data recovery company who managed to image the data onto another drive. I then bought another 1TB drive to use as the new parity drive. I've succesfully added the replacement data drive and unraid has assigned it without problems. The parity drive has been connected up correctly and is recognised by the bios, but does not appear in unraid. Under the "Devices" heading, the parity is listed as 'unassigned', but the new drive does not appear in the drop down list. Will unraid automatically find and assign the new drive as 'parity' if I hit the 'restore' button? I presume that 'restore' is the correct thing to do, unless anyone thinks differently?

 

Thanks

Robert

Restore is the WRONG button to use in almost all cases except when removing a data drive from the array and NOT replacing it with another.

 

You'll need to use the "devices" page to assign your new parity drive if it did not show up by itself.  Then, you can just use the "Start" button to start the array and calculate parity onto the replacement parity drive.  You may have used a different port on the disk controller when you re-cabled, and for that reason  unRAID did not automatically assume the new drive was your parity drive.

 

And unRAID would not automatically find ANY drive if you hit the button labeled "restore"  It does not restore data, it instead removes the file that stores any old configuration and creates a new one based on your currently assigned (and working) drives.  It immediately invalidates any prior parity calculation. (although in your case, their is no prior data, because it is a new disk)  The "Restore" button goes only by what you have assigned.  Using it when any data drive has failed will erase any parity data calcs that would allow you to rebuild data onto that drive.

 

So... use "Start" after assigning the new parity drive to the parity role.

 

Then, after parity has been calculated, press the "Check" button to verify the parity disk can be read.  (Initially parity is only written, there is no verify of the new parity disk until you go to read it in a parity check operation.)

 

Joe L.

I just re-read your original post... You said the new drive did not show up in the drop-down list by unRAID. Yet, you said it was recognized by the BIOS.

 

I'd say verify the cabling to that drive (after powering down first)

 

If it still does not get recognized, thy a different port on your disk controller.  Who knows, it too might have gotten zapped in your mishap.

 

(sorry to hear of the frying of your drives... happy to learn the data was recovered)

 

Post a syslog if you still find the drive not recognized, and not in the drop-down-list.

 

Joe L.

That did the trick Joe, although I think I will probably need to replace the pci sata controller at some point, since one of the ports seems to be broken...

 

My options now seem to be limited to the 'restore' button, since the 'start' button is greyed out with the message "Too many wrong and/or missing disks!" I presume then that thiis is the thing to do..?

Your syslog is showing that disk6 is "wrong" and the parity drive is "missing"

 

Are they now properly assigned? (but on different ports than they used to be)

 

If so, because you changed the hardware ports used, then you will need to use the "restore" button to save a new set of hardware in the config/super.dat file that tracks disk status.

 

Joe L.

Sorry, the syslog was from before I switched the drive to a different port.

 

Ok, 'restore' button it is... I'm going in....