Actually that's all Rob's fault => Reiserfsck is psychic ... it sensed Rob's question and moved all of the recovered files to Lost & Found  :)

I am beginning to believe you. I have just run into my first issues.

 

During the process of reading drive 5 my network went down and screen disappeared from view. It was fortunate that i was there at the time so can confirm the process at that time was not complete.

 

I noted activity still appeared to be taking place on the server but I still had not got any network. I then noted green lights on all drives on the outside of the server which would normally happen when the process is complete.I know the process was not complete.

 

I had to re-set the router in order to return the network currently I have not got the original screen window so do not know what the current situation is. But a steady red light is on drive 5 and the amber/activity light as such is displayed.

I have been monitoring for sometime and it has not moved and nothing has been written to parity in that time.

 

I am presuming the red light is telling me the process is incomplete? I have not touched anything since so its as it was.

 

I await your guidance on how to proceed, none of the drives are currently visible so samba I presume still off.

 

Peter

I'd assume the red light on disk #5 indicates it's still busy, but without any access it's hard to say for sure.  [This is one very good reason to always do these kind of things on a locally connected console]

 

If you have UnMenu's powerdown installed, you SHOULD be able to simply press the power button on the server (briefly -- don't hold it in to force anything) and the system should do a "clean" shutdown.    What I'm not sure about is whether this is still true with Samba already off.    If it does indeed do a clean shutdown, you should be able to simply reboot the server, and then restart the recovery on disk 5.

 

Hello Gary

 

Currently I am not in front of the machine and not able to access it. But I can confirm before I left the house left I noted the drive light was still red, and also noted that parity was being written too. So I presume that even though screen is not visible and also after I had re-set the router things were still running. I will update further when I get home.

 

Peter

Can you use putty to telnet into the server? If yes, run

 

screen -r

 

That will resume your screen session. If you can't access the server over the network, run that command on the server console. You don't ent to interrupt the recovery operation!

Agree it's best to not interrupt the recovery operation.  The fact that #5's light is staying on; and that parity is also being written to periodically, indicates all is working -- you just can't get to it.

 

Since you don't have a console on the server (which would clearly be the best thing right now), I'd just try again to telnet in (which you've tried unsuccessfully several times ... but you never know -- it might work next time);  and if that doesn't work wait until the disk activity lights stop;  then shut down the server via a quick press of the power button (which SHOULD do a "clean" shutdown if you have PowerDown installed -- which I suspect you do, since you're running UnMenu).

 

Worst case:  you'll have to do a "dirty" shutdown by holding the power button -- which will invoke a parity check when you reboot the server ... you could, in that case, simply stop the parity check -- as long as you didn't shut down before the reiserfsck operation finished (i.e. no active lights) parity should still be fine.

 

I have arrived home to find all lights green. There is no activity on the server as was seen this morning. I have tried to telnet into puTTy  without success, the response, unable to open connection to Tower, host does not exist. This I presume is because samba is stopped. I have no access via UnMain either.

 

If i was to take an educated guess on my experience to now, and looking at the server at this time it looks to have completed. I am guessing here the option is to do a clean shutdown using the quick press of the power button.

Yes, if all lights are green and there's no activity, it's virtually certain that reiserfsck has completed.

 

I would do the following ...

 

(a) press briefly on the power button ... then wait a minute or two to see if the system does a clean shutdown.    Hopefully it will -- if you have PowerDown installed I'm fairly sure it will, although I'm not sure if the fact Samba is stopped may cause that to not work.

 

or

 

(b)  If (a) doesn't work, then just hold the power button in until the system shuts down (~ 5 seconds).    This will be a "dirty" shutdown ... so when you reboot the system it will start an immediate parity check.    You could, if you want, just wait for that to complete ... but I see no real reason to do so ... I'd just log in to the Web GUI and CANCEL the check.      Then have a look at the last disk you recovered and see how it looks ... and then start the next recovery.

 

 

 

Can you query the router to determine the IP address of the unraid server? I have had issues where I could not connect by name but could by IP.

Very fortunately I have got away with this, Disk 5 done, all lights showing green, closed machine with single press of power button.

 

Powered up machine, stopped the array, all drives show unformatted !!!!( potentially the same situation i found myself in.)

 

I went through the process of stopping the array several times before I was satisfied all the drives were stopped and not showing unformatted.

 

Array started, Drive 5 showed 90% I enjoyed a somewhat warm feeling and noted only one folder, Lost+Found, hence lots of gardening ahead. (much better than i had envisaged)

 

Drive 6 currently being worked still using PuTTy

So do I correctly understand that the drives are no longer showing unformatted?

 

... and you're now up to #6 in the recovery process??

 

Hopefully your network won't drop the server connection again ... this is (as I've noted before) the risk you take when not using a console attached to the server.

 

So do I correctly understand that the drives are no longer showing unformatted?

 

... and you're now up to #6 in the recovery process??

 

Hopefully your network won't drop the server connection again ... this is (as I've noted before) the risk you take when not using a console attached to the server.

 

Yes I stopped the array and restarted it and drives were showing as unformatted and inviting me to format them. I closed the array down and restarted several times before I got the appropriate stage.

 

Drive 6 is currently being worked.

You should capture the log before rebooting so that someone can take a look and maybe see why drives are not always mounting.

You should capture the log before rebooting so that someone can take a look and maybe see why drives are not always mounting.

 

Seems you are saying you stopped and started the array several times before drives appear properly formatted.

 

If so, I 1000% agree with this suggestion. This may point back to the root cause of the problem.

Is it possible to find a single folder deleted after the rebuild of a drive? it was there and has got deleted. what would be the command line without inducing another rebuild.

Is it possible to find a single folder deleted after the rebuild of a drive? it was there and has got deleted. what would be the command line without inducing another rebuild.

Not that I know of.

 

Not really quite sure what you are trying to do?  If you meant that you deleted a file from a disk you have already rebuilt then I am afraid that only a rebuild with the -S option can get it back - there is no undelete functionality built in.  If it is a disk you have not yet rebuilt then you are going to have to wait until you have rebuilt that disk to see what is found on the disk.

it was a folder that was on a newly rebuilt disk and i cant see it now and think it was deleted. Just wondered if it was possible to just get that single folder back. clearly not without a total rebuild?

 

Would that damage what was already recovered?

it was a folder that was on a newly rebuilt disk and i cant see it now and think it was deleted. Just wondered if it was possible to just get that single folder back. clearly not without a total rebuild?

Not that I know off.

 

Would that damage what was already recovered?

No. 

 

It might recover some deleted folders/files that you had intentionally deleted as part of tidying up after the initial rebuild but that is the worst scenario.

Thanks for that info, I think I will make a note of the issue, continue to build the remaining drives, and re-run the drive later to recover it.

The final frontier.........

 

I have recovered all 11 disks, all that remains is the work currently being undertaken on drive 6 to correct the deletion by me inadvertently of a folder. None of this would have been possible for me without  the unreserved  help given to me by the experts on this forum and for that I salute you.

 

I have traveled a journey I did not think was possible, and learned even more about UnRaid, and also learned a lot about Reiserfsck which is an extraordinary piece of code of the highest order and certainly would not want to be in a situation where I could not use it again.

 

I do have some footnote questions which I am sure the aficionado's will have a view on;

 

The Lost & Found folder awaiting my attention on all drives does hold, in some cases, an extensive list. Some quite large file sizes but of course no identifiable features.

Did you have any particularly successful process that you used to help with that work, or any tips you may be able to pass on?

 

Finally, its clear to me it is time to upgrade 4.7 to 6.1 as Rob has suggested, and i will be be reading up on that and looking for the guidance around it. Its my intention to increase to 4TB drives. Hopefully I will still be able to use Reiserfsck?

 

And your recommendation for a replacement power supply as identified early in this thread. And that of a cloud based back-up facility.

 

Peter

Please consider building a new rig and leaving the current setup intact as a backup. That way you can migrate data leisurely, play with new features, reimagine how you are using unraid now that 6.x has so many new features and toys.

 

After this saga, you deserve some tech playtime without the stress of possible lost data.

You can indeed continue to use Reiser as your file system with v6.    Many prefer to move to XFS, but personally I did NOT do that -- primarily due to exactly what you've just discovered ... that Reiserfsck is an amazing tool for recovery should anything go wrong.    I happen to have always-current backups on a second server, so I COULD easily move to another file system, since if anything goes wrong I can simply copy from my backups ... but I just haven't seen any real reason to switch.    [At least not until we get some feedback on the recovery tools that work with XFS]

 

As for your "Lost & Found" folders ... there's no simple way to identify them.  You can try opening each file with different programs -- when you find the right one it should be clear what the file is.    But it can indeed be a tedious process.

 

I definitely agree with the suggestion to simply keep your older server and build a new one, so you'll have a complete set of backups.  You can THEN move the original server to v6 if you want.

 

You could try using the 'file' command on the files in the lost+found directory which may at least help you identify the file types and allow you to put any appropriate extension back onto the filenames.

 

This should hopefully help you in your file identification process.

Note also that the size of the files may be helpful ... i.e. a 1GB file is likely a .VOB file from a DVD;  multi-GB files are probably whatever container you may have used for full videos (MKV, MP4, etc.);  smaller files may be MP3's; etc. ==> think about what kind of data you had, and then consider what the sizes of those files were and you'll likely have a good clue about at least some of them.

 

It is also worth pointing out that it is possible that some of the file in the lost+found folder may be trash in that they are file fragments that were recovered instead of the complete file.  This is most likely to be as a result of files that were deleted and that subsequently had part of the area they had used over-written by another file.