I have purchased unraid years ago for version 4.0. I never upgraded my usb stick. Unfortunately the  USB stick was damaged and I don't have a back up. I have plenty of stuff on the hard disks that I don't want to loose. If I purchase the new version will it be able to just find my drives or will I lose years of stuff. FYI, I made each drive a stand alone, I did not cross drives. I think that was high-water 0.

 

Please let me know what I can do.

Start by reading this:

 

      https://lime-technology.com/replace-key/

 

Note the address for you to present the circumstances surrounding your problem.  Your original .key file should be usable for any of the new versions.  However, the upgrade procedures for very early versions may not be as straight forward as the later versions are. 

You should not need to buy another key as your key will remain valid for later releases.  If you no longer have your key file then email Limetech explaining what has happened and I expect they can help with the key.

First, yes, the new version will be able to read the data on the disks.

 

Second, as already noted, IF you have the original key file; or if you have a record of your purchase -- or at least know the e-mail address you used when you purchased it -- LimeTech will likely be able to provide you a replacement key file.

 

You'll then be able to install the new version of UnRAID and use the automated system to replace that key with one registered to the new USB flash drive you used for the new version.

 

Once you have UnRAID running, just assign your old disks as data disks -- I would NOT assign a parity drive initially until you're sure which drives are data and which one was parity -- and then Start the array and you should be able to see all of your data.

 

You'll likely need to run the "New Permissions" utility since you're coming from such an old version (very easy to do); and you'll probably want to enable disk shares on the Global sharing page, since you apparently used your disks as individual disks and didn't have user shares enabled.

 

By the way, if all you need to do is access the data from the old disks, you can do that by simply attaching them to a Windows PC and using the free LinuxReader to view/copy the data on the disks.

 

http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/screenshots.shtml

 

You can attach the disks to any modern computer using one of these handy gadgets:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA10V3K62459&cm_re=ide_to_usb-_-12-156-017-_-Product