Help! USB Drive died and need to know how to recover.

[nate]

So I was having issue with files missing when my server was running like my Docker.cfg and a copy other old behavior items.  So I decided to do a clean reboot to see if that helped since my uptime was 309 days without issues prior to this.  When the reboot happened it didn't come back up.  So I took the USB Drive to my windows computer and it detected it but detected it as an invalid disk.  Basically the USB thumb drive is toast.  So fortunately when I bought my license key I bought two because I was going to build a second server later but it never has materialized but I was able to dig out that thumb drive.  I plugged it in and it booted right up.

 

Now my problem is I am staring at a blank configuration with no array defined.  What do I do to redefine my array so that I don't lose my data?  I have the following drives:

250 GB SSD Cache Drive (Easy enough knowing which one that is)

5 - 6 TB Drives

2 - 4 TB Drives

 

One of the 6 TB drives is my parity drive, how do I figure that out?  Does it matter what order I enter the other drives in on the array?  Can I use the UI to restore my array and keep the data? Any help is definitely appreciated as right now I am freaking out that I might of lost years of home movies, pictures, etc.

 

Thanks and Regards,

Nate

[JonathanM]

Well, you know for sure that one of the 6TB drives is parity, so what I would do is assign all the 6TB drives to data slots, and start the array. Hopefully only one of them will show as unmountable, and that is your parity drive. Write that serial number down somewhere, stop the array, do a new config again and this time assign the parity drive to the parity slot, and the rest of the drives to data and cache, respectively. Set the "Parity is valid" option, and start the array. Assuming all the drives show up correctly, I'd start a non-correcting parity check just to verify. If no errors, you are good to go, and can set up users and share permissions again. All your shares will automatically be recreated, but you will have to change any details about included and excluded drives, users allowed, cache only, etc.

 

As long as you DO NOT ASSIGN A DRIVE TO THE PARITY SLOT WITHOUT KNOWING FOR SURE IT'S THE PARITY DRIVE, you won't lose any data.

 

Repeat, DON'T POPULATE THE PARITY SLOT IN THE DRIVE ASSIGNMENT SCREEN UNTIL YOU ARE SURE.

 

You'll be fine, and your server will be back up in no time. 

 

If more than one drive shows as unmountable in a data slot on the first step, post back with your diagnostics zip file attached.

[nate]

Thanks for the help.  I was able to get my array back up and running and think everything is working correctly again.

 

[Frank1940]

Thanks for the help.  I was able to get my array back up and running and think everything is working correctly again.

 

Now you need to make a backup of your Flash Drive so that you can quickly recover if something like this ever happens again.  To do this, Stop the array (On the 'Main' page, 'Array Operations' page.  Then copy all of the contents from the Flash Drive back to another computer.  (Stopping the array will write a file that tells unRAID that the server shutdown correctly which will prevent a parity check if you do a restore from your backup.)

[trurl]

Thanks for the help.  I was able to get my array back up and running and think everything is working correctly again.

 

Now you need to make a backup of your Flash Drive so that you can quickly recover if something like this ever happens again.  To do this, Stop the array (On the 'Main' page, 'Array Operations' page.  Then copy all of the contents from the Flash Drive back to another computer.  (Stopping the array will write a file that tells unRAID that the server shutdown correctly which will prevent a parity check if you do a restore from your backup.)

The file unRAID stores the start/stop status in is config/super.dat, the same file that stores your disk assignments. Never restore a backup of config/super.dat that doesn't match your current disk assignments. If ever in doubt, delete this file and unRAID will make you reassign all your drives. There has been more than one user who used a backup that wasn't current and unRAID began writing parity to the wrong disk because config/super.dat showed their old parity - now reused as a data disk - was still the parity drive.

[DAN101]

hi, I don't know if you still have the same problem, but I just want to ask if you have tried using recovery software to get back your lost files? You can use Acethinker Disk Recovery, it can detect your broken hdd, just plug it to a working PC and run the tool. Hope you find this useful.