I am getting "Device is disabled, contents emulated" on my parity drive. I got this for the first time last week after adding another cache drive. That ssd drive had errors so I removed it. In turn that made it so I had to format my other cache drive but I have a backup of that so it was no big deal (I have not yet restored it). I have sense checked cables. I restarted and did a smart test. The short and extended tests passed. I am not sure how to fix the issue or even what next steps I need to do.

 

I am running 6.1.0

The device that is getting the error is ST3000DM001-1CH166_Z1F2GWH6

 

I attached my diagnostics report.

 

Thanks for any help

tower-diagnostics-20150909-0841.zip

I am getting "Device is disabled, contents emulated" on my parity drive. I got this for the first time last week after adding another cache drive. That ssd drive had errors so I removed it. In turn that made it so I had to format my other cache drive but I have a backup of that so it was no big deal (I have not yet restored it). I have sense checked cables. I restarted and did a smart test. The short and extended tests passed. I am not sure how to fix the issue or even what next steps I need to do.

 

I am running 6.1.0

The device that is getting the error is ST3000DM001-1CH166_Z1F2GWH6

 

I attached my diagnostics report.

 

Thanks for any help

That is a bit of a strange message as normally one thinks of a disabled data disk as being emulated using parity plus the other data disks.  Having said that maybe that is the state that one ends up with if a write to the parity disk fails.    I would be very interested in seeing a screen shot of the Main tab showing this state and error message.

 

I assume that in principle one recovery would be the same as for a data drive in that the basic process would be to replace the parity disk and regenerate parity.    However the SMART reports do not indicate anything wrong with the drive, so it is possible it was a transient error (cabling, power spike, or something similar) and the disk is fine.  If so one could try and reuse the 'suspect' disk and recover by stopping the array; unassigning the drive; starting the array to make unRAID 'forget' the drive; stopping the array; assigning the drive back; starting the array to rebuild parity.

 

However in light of the strange error message I would suggest that you wait a bit after posting the screenshot to see if everyone else is happy it is the parity drive with issues and not a data drive as taking the wrong action might result in data loss.

Yes, definitely post a screenshot. Your description doesn't seem right and we need to be very clear before taking any action or you could lose data.

I think it's a small bug, in that the count of disabled disks is 1, and that's probably triggering that message.  It probably didn't check that the disabled disk is the parity disk, so no emulating.  A disabled parity disk is rather rare!  Can't remember seeing that before.  A screen shot would confirm what the diagnostics say.  Following itimpi's advice to rebuild the parity drive is what I recommend too.

Yeah I will wait a little bit before I do anything and see what others have to say. Thanks for the ideas though.

 

I almost forgot I did those changes friday and didn't notice any issues until yesterday. Though I have a parity check that is scheduled every sunday. Not sure that matters or not.

 

Here are a few screen shots of my web gui.

OK, that looks like it is indeed your parity disk. It was the emulated part that was throwing us off, since there is no data to emulate on parity. The legend is not really correct in the case of a disabled parity disk.

Makes sense. I had never seen anything like that before so I was just using the key to help. So do you think itimpi's idea is the best to follow?

When you hover your mouse over the red cross of the parity drive in the main screen, it should say: Parity device is disabled. Can you check/confirm that?

When you hover your mouse over the red cross of the parity drive in the main screen, it should say: Parity device is disabled. Can you check/confirm that?

 

I will check this tonight when I get off work. What does that mean if it does say that? Or if it doesn't.

When you hover your mouse over the red cross of the parity drive in the main screen, it should say: Parity device is disabled. Can you check/confirm that?

 

I will check this tonight when I get off work. What does that mean if it does say that? Or if it doesn't.

 

I think it is just the legend which is a bit misleading, but not the actual text which goes with the drive.

 

When you hover your mouse over the red cross of the parity drive in the main screen, it should say: Parity device is disabled. Can you check/confirm that?

 

I will check this tonight when I get off work. What does that mean if it does say that? Or if it doesn't.

 

I think it is just the legend which is a bit misleading, but not the actual text which goes with the drive.

 

@bonienl I looked at what you said and it I can confirm that it says "Parity device is disabled". Should I follow the steps of given by itimpi?

I have this same issue, parity disk is disabled but Smart Test looks fine. Started a few days ago. I am on 6.1.1.

 

Looking forward to others results.

 

I have this same issue, parity disk is disabled but Smart Test looks fine. Started a few days ago. I am on 6.1.1.
 
Looking forward to others results.

Looks like the error message is a little misleading if it is the parity disk that is disabled.
 
To recover then the following steps should always do the trick:

 

To recover then the following steps should always do the trick:

[*]Stop the array

[*]Unassign the disk

[*]Start the array.

[*]Stop the array

[*]Assign the disk

[*]Start the array and parity build should start

 

 

Just followed these steps this morning. Parity is rebuilding and I will update on how it went after it is finished.

Thanks for the help my parity disk is rebuilding as we speak

 

To recover then the following steps should always do the trick:

[*]Stop the array

[*]Unassign the disk

[*]Start the array.

[*]Stop the array

[*]Assign the disk

[*]Start the array and parity build should start

 

 

Just followed these steps this morning. Parity is rebuilding and I will update on how it went after it is finished.

 

Parity finished rebuilding and seems to be good to go. Any chance that it could be an invalid parity? Everything seems good but I want to make sure I am protected can I confirm it is a good build?

Run a non-correcting parity check

Run a non-correcting parity check

 

Did this and got zero errors. Guess I am good to go. Thank you all for the help. I am back up and running.

Sorry to ressurect this ancient thread, but this is the closest issue to mine that I've seen so far.

 

If either of you is still around, @sureguy, @itimpi, I'd appreciate your insights on my post here: 

 

11 minutes ago, kennelfort said:

Sorry to ressurect this ancient thread

If anybody has anything at all to say to this, please DON'T respond to this crosspost. Go to the linked thread instead. In fact, since this is so old I am going to go ahead and lock it.

 

@kennelfort Please don't crosspost. It makes it impossible to coordinate our responses when you have a discussion about the same thing going on multiple threads.