Hi folks,

  I'm having a minor panic mode at the moment. My unraid box has come up saying that the array is stopped and that all the drives are empty !!!! (Well it is saying that it is importing new disk for all of my drives - see attached syslog).

 

I have 5 x 1.5TB drives of content and 1 x 2 TB parity drive. The array was nearly completely filled so I REALLY don't want to lose the content.

 

I'm not sure what to do from the UI as I have two options

 

"Start" will record all disk information, bring the array on-line, and start Parity-Sync (if parity is present). The array is immediately available, but is unprotected until Parity-Sync completes.

 

"Restore" will initialize the stored array configuration; all drives will appear as New, but data disk contents are not affected.

I'm sure I want to do this

 

I want to keep my content as is. I do not want to lose any content.

 

I have started and stopped my array many times in the past ... but not when it says all my disks are NEW. I am uncertain what the "start" and "restore" will do in this situation.

 

Start sounds like it will read from the disks and construct a new parity disk based upon the existing content. I don't know if this is the correct thing to do as I don't know what state the physical drives are in - ie it may mangle the parity drive based upon false "empty" drives - thereby losing my ability to recover from any true drive failures.

 

Restore also sounds promising ... but the "all drives will apear as new" confuses me. Data disk contents are not affected is promising. What happens to the the existing "parity drive". Does the array get recomposed and my shares are all available again?

 

Apologies if the course of action here is obvious to others but I am a little stressed now and suffering from a cold (which doesn't help).

 

Any helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

thanks

    belorion

 

Hi folks,

   I'm having a minor panic mode at the moment. My unraid box has come up saying that the array is stopped and that all the drives are empty !!!! (Well it is saying that it is importing new disk for all of my drives - see attached syslog).

 

I have 5 x 1.5TB drives of content and 1 x 2 TB parity drive. The array was nearly completely filled so I REALLY don't want to lose the content.

 

I'm not sure what to do from the UI as I have two options

 

"Start" will record all disk information, bring the array on-line, and start Parity-Sync (if parity is present). The array is immediately available, but is unprotected until Parity-Sync completes.

 

"Restore" will initialize the stored array configuration; all drives will appear as New, but data disk contents are not affected.

I'm sure I want to do this

 

I want to keep my content as is. I do not want to lose any content.

 

I have started and stopped my array many times in the past ... but not when it says all my disks are NEW. I am uncertain what the "start" and "restore" will do in this situation.

 

Start sounds like it will read from the disks and construct a new parity disk based upon the existing content. I don't know if this is the correct thing to do as I don't know what state the physical drives are in - ie it may mangle the parity drive based upon false "empty" drives - thereby losing my ability to recover from any true drive failures.

 

Restore also sounds promising ... but the "all drives will apear as new" confuses me. Data disk contents are not affected is promising. What happens to the the existing "parity drive". Does the array get recomposed and my shares are all available again?

 

Apologies if the course of action here is obvious to others but I am a little stressed now and suffering from a cold (which doesn't help).

 

Any helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

thanks

    belorion

 

The root cause is that the super.dat file on your flash drive was not readable, therefore, your array has no record of the old disk assignments. 

Your syslog shows this line:

Nov 23 18:31:48 Tower kernel: md: could not read superblock from /boot/config/super.dat
Nov 23 18:31:48 Tower kernel: md: initializing superblock

Your data on the hard-disks is fine.

 

If all of your disks are present (none of them showing disabled/missing/red) then you are a prime candidate to use the "Trust my parity" process.  But first, I'd power down your server, move the flash drive to a windows PC and run checkdsk on it to make sure it is ok.

 

Then, once verified it is OK, move it back to the unRAID server and follow the procedure described here:  http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Make_unRAID_Trust_the_Parity_Drive,_Avoid_Rebuilding_Parity_Unnecessarily

 

if you have questions, ask... whatever you do, DO NOT press a "Format" button.  (It should not even appear, but if it does, don't press it)

The button labeled "restore" is poorly named.  It sets an initial disk configuration and would normally result in an immediate invalidation of any prior parity data causing a full parity calculation to start when you start the array.  By use of the "trust" procedure listed in the wiki, you can retain your parity protection.

 

Pressing "restore" will create a new copy of the super.dat file, and it will then replace the one that cannot be read on the flash drive.

 

Joe L.

thanks very much Joe. I will try out your suggested procedure when I get home tonight :- )

 

I feel much more comfortable now that I know the root cause of the problem (corrupted config file on USB drive).

 

ciao

    belorion

Just wanted to say that I did as Joe instructed and everything appears AOK - parity is clean and content appears good (inasmuch as I can manually verify 7.5TB of content).

 

Thanks muchly

 

belorion