My experience

I'm not sure if this is where I should post my experiences over the past few weeks (based on this thread http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6117.15;topicseen ).  But for what its worth...my 4.5.3 story...

In a nutshell, I basically had to go through a complete recovery process as detailed in the above thread.  The only 'bug' that I believe I encountered was when I tried to add a new drive to my array, and clicked on the FORMAT button.  I've been told by others on here that most likely I did not notice that the other drives were also shown as being unformatted ; however, I still remain firm in what I saw.  As a result, when I clicked on the Format button, all drives were 'formatted' and 3 seconds after I clicked it, I knew something was wrong.  Having said that, the recovery process, albeit a long one, wasnt too bad...thanks to the help of learned scholars on here such as Joe and Weebo. 

The end result was quite positive for me,actually.  I would say that I recovered about 95% of the data, and the rest I can really attribute to my 'cleaning up' of the stuff that was on there - so really, it was a full recovery for all intents and purposes.  Not to mention that I did gain quite a bit of knowledge about the intricacies of the Unraid box. 

I must also note that since that dreaded day where I clicked on that Format button, I have probably come across that exact same situation 3-4 times.  Reason being is that I just decided to move a few smaller drives off the array, and add fewer larger ones.  (I did all this after the recovery was done and parity  confirmed)  I must admit that the first time I came across it again, I sat there and stared at the monitor for a good 10 seconds, ensured it was just the new drive showing as such (like I did the first time). But this time I took it further, called my wife in and had her confirm it as well.  Then I took pictures of the screen, screenshots with notes, etc.  About an hour later, I clicked on the format button, and it worked like I thought it was going to work the first time.  Drive had already been precleared so it took about 20 seconds.  No issues.  Did that a few more times, and no issues at alll.  So not being able to recreate the situation where all drives show up as unformatted has me leaning towards my contention that there was/is a bug and that I wasnt just impatiently clicking on buttons.  I am usually a pretty meticulous person especially when it comes to something like this, more so even now.  I dont know how that could possibly help anyone, but hopefully at least heighten awareness, especially when it comes to adding a new drive.