Hi

 

I may have a similar problem.

 

My disk 5 is showing as unmountable.  I changed it to another (non blank) disk from a redundant Thecus NAS but it still came up as unmountable.  I then precleared the disk overnight and tried again this morning.  It is still showing as unmountable. However, the disk is showing up green on the Main page (see attached image) but I am getting warnings on the Shares page that some files are unprotected.  Other issues I am up against are that I cannot stop the array.  I have to run the powerdown script.  Also I cannot format the unmountable drive.  Both this option and the stop array option are ignored.

 

Given that this is the second disk that has the same problem in the same slot, do you think it could be a hardware issue?

 

I am at a loss as to what to do next.  Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Syslog_Jul_06.txt

More attachments:

 

Syslog_Jul_07.txt

And finally:

You can rebuild a 100 times, and it will always come up as unmountable because the "emulated" drive (ie: the information required to rebuild a drive from the parity and other disks) has the file system as unmountable.

 

You need to do this:

 

https://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Check_Disk_Filesystems

Also note the read errors on your parity disk during the rebuild, could be the reason for the unmountable disk5.

 

Check SMART or post diagnostics.

Thank you for that.

 

I have run reiserfsck and am getting a load of bad sectors etc.

 

My question is, therefore, how do I put in a new disk if the system is going to think it is unmountable?  How do I clear that?

 

Thanks

Thank you for that.

 

I have run reiserfsck and am getting a load of bad sectors etc.

 

My question is, therefore, how do I put in a new disk if the system is going to think it is unmountable?  How do I clear that?

 

Thanks

post the output of reiserfsck so that we can proceed to fix the issues and get the disk (or the emulated disk) mountable again

 

Silly question but where is the output log?  the intro said it would be put into 'stdout'.  Where is that to be found?

Silly question but where is the output log?  the intro said it would be put into 'stdout'.  Where is that to be found?

 

By default, 'stdout' is the normally the monitor that you have connected to your server.  However, it you are using a terminal (or terminal emulator like PuTTY) then it would be to the terminal (or the emulator). 

Thanks

 

This is all I am getting now.  To be clear I just clicked the check button with no optional switches.

 

Your current Disk 5 has 2 serious problems, file system corruption and bad sectors.  File system issues can't be dealt with if there are sector issues, so those have to be cleaned up first.  I noticed that this Disk 5 (WD10EARS...5714) is not the same as the first Disk 5 (WD10EADS...9736).  This Disk 5 has at least 25 questionable sectors, so it must not be the drive you Precleared (I assume the Preclear was successful?).  You have a choice - unassign this one and Preclear it 2 or 3 times then reassign it, or grab another that you know is good (check its SMART report to make sure its clean) and assign it instead.

 

The next problem is that Parity has issues, so it may need repair, AND it may not be sufficiently valid for rebuilding Disk 5.  Please provide its SMART report.

 

Once the Parity drive is as good as we'll be able to get it (and assuming it's still valid), then you can rebuild Disk 5.  Once it's rebuilt, then you will need to check its file system, and proceed accordingly.  Are you sure it's formatted as ReiserFS?  I see another drive formatted as XFS.  Using the wrong repair tool can make things worse.

 

Is there any chance you have the original Disk 5, untouched, even if it has issues?  It's possible we may need to go back to it for data recovery, if parity can't be used.

Hi Rob

 

Phew, you don't miss much do you!  I have fiddled with three disks and the one I precleared was one I didn't mind losing data on.  In fact I am currently using it to copy my most sensitive data to in case things go seriously Tom Tit.

 

The original Disk 5 is WD10EARS...5714 and is currently back in the array but is, of course, unmountable.  I have been trying to protect the data on this disk as much as possible.  I was hoping that if I pre-cleared a fresh disk and assigned it, then parity would do its job and rebuild the data but, for reasons I still don't understand, I cannot mount any disk in slot 5.  I will choose a fresh disk and preclear it overnight and tomorrow.  (Unfortunately I have to go to Hong Kong for a few days tomorrow evening, so will have to pause if it cannot be fixed in time).

 

With regards to the Parity drive, I attach it's SMART Report

 

If I use a fresh disk, I can format it with reiserfs, can't I.  I don't 100% know the original disk 5's file system but the indication is that it is reiserfs.  Can we interrogate it later, to find out?

 

Very many thanks for all your help.

 

 

 

 

tower-smart-report-parity-disk.zip

Note that a rebuild never makes a disk mountable if it was showing as unmountable before the rebuild.    That is because the 'emulated' drive has file system corruption, and a rebuild simply replicates this file system corruption on the new drive.    The only way to clear file system corruption is to run the appropriate repair tool.    You can try running this against the emulated disk before doing the rebuild if you want.

 

Note also that you cannot change the file system type during a rebuild.    Changing the file system type wipes all data off a drive, so you first need to copy its contents elsewhere, and then put it back after successfully changing the file system.

OK, thank you for that.  It seems to make sense.  Would you suggest I try to pull off as much data as possible from the damaged drive and store it elsewhere prior to attempting any repair?  Can I do that from the emulated drive?

OK, thank you for that.  It seems to make sense.  Would you suggest I try to pull off as much data as possible from the damaged drive and store it elsewhere prior to attempting any repair?  Can I do that from the emulated drive?

 

Absolutely.  You may have some files you can't copy because of the problems on the parity drive. (Since the Parity Disk is a 3TB and disk 5 is a 1TB, the errors on the parity may be beyond the 1TB mark.)  I would suggest that you copy the files in several batches (logically organized) so you know what you have successfully copied if/when the copy process errors out.  Hopefully, if you have a problem, it may only impact one file. 

 

EDIT:  I hope you mean 'elsewhere' is not a part of this server.

Hi again

 

I have now backed up as much data as possible to separate external hard drives and have precleared another disk a couple of times.

 

How do I get the system to mount it, and to rebuild the array?

 

Thanks