Empty config and syslinux folders on usb

[genie137]

Hello All,

 

Yesterday I shutdown the server trough the webui, In order for me to air clean the system.

When i wanted to reboot the server it did not start the unraid os. It gave an error about a config file missing for syslinux.

This morning i put the USB with the unraid installation on another pc, and i discovered that the config and syslinux folders are empty.

How do i proceed? I would not like to lose all my data...

 

Kind regards,

Genie

[Frank1940]

First thing.  Do not panic.  You have  not lost any data (on the server's HD's) due to a problem on your flash drive.

 

Second thing.  Do you have a backup of your flash drive?  If you do, we can start from that.  Do you have a up-to-date printout of your drive assignments? 

 

Third thing.  Pull that Flash Drive and copy everything that you can off of it into a folder on your PC.  

 

Fourth thing.  Run a chkdsk on the Flash Drive on your PC and see what that recovers.  

 

Let's see where we are at this point.  

[genie137]

Hey Frank,

Thanks for your response.

 

1. Thank god.

2. No I have not, after some research today I realize i should have. Lesson learned.

3. I tried but no luck. The usb is detected and searchable, but i cant copy anything off it. Ive tried EaseUs recovery software, but it cant find the config files.

4. Chkdsk I tried aswel. It gave a lot of messages with broken filelinks, and sector errors. After giving a sort of summary the chkdsk program froze and it the usb became RAW. 

[Frank1940]

Do you have a copy of your .key file for that Flash Drive?   If you do it will make it a lot easier to get a new one.  

 

Basically at this point, you are going to need a new Flash Drive.  Use a name-brand USB2 Flash Drive with a capacity between 8GB and 32GB.  (New is preferable, but lightly used would also be a good choice.)

 

Download the latest version of unRAID and load it up on that Flash Drive using the instructions that LimeTech provides on their site.  If you  have the old .key file, read here on how to get a replacement key:

 

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

 

IF not, send a E-mail to them and explain what the situation is.  They usually bend over backwards to help their customers.  You will need the GUID number of the Flash Drive, and you can find it by booting up the new flash drive in your server and on the Main tab, look under the Boot Device, and click on 'Flash'. 

 

Now, you have to be able to figure out which specific hard drives were assigned as parity drive(s), cache drive(s), and data drives.  Cache can be the one that is the most difficult.  (Finding the parity is actually pretty easy, it will be the one that is not formatted.)  You want to know the manufacturer and last four digits of the serial number of the parity and cache drive if you can determine them.)  Hopefully finding the cache drive will be easy if you have one.  If you don't know which drive is the parity drive, assign all of the drives as data drives and start the array.  The one that is not formatted is the parity drive.  Stop the array and reassign it as parity (Making any other changes needed)  and restart the array.  (STOP---  if you have more than one drive unformatted and get things sorted out.  Don't format any drive without deliberate considering why it is necessary as formatting will guarantee that if there was data on that drive, you will lose all chances of recovering it!) 

[John_M]

If you can't find your .key file it's worth searching your old emails for one from [email protected] which was sent at the time you purchased your licence. If you manage to find it it contains both your licence key and the GUID of your old flash device.

[genie137]

Hello,

 

So I recovered all files

Thanks for the help.

There should be a step by step manual for when people have issues like this.

So What i did was the following, maby this will help others:

 

1. Detected that my "original" USB was corrupted for some reason. The server was running > 100 days so the corruption could have happened earlier.
2. I searched my mail, had the original key file.
3. Downloaded the USB creator (https://lime-technology.com/download/) and flashed another good quality USB drive from sandisk. Also entered my static ip there already
4. Booted the server from that usb, needed to change some BIOS settings to boot properly again.
5. When trying to reinstall the .key link into the server it will report that its a different USB. Follow the instructions to replace the key. Insert the newly received link into the field.
6. I had no cache drives, added all the drives (2x2TB) as data drives. And started the array.
7. One of the drives reported no filesystem, which is the Partity drive. Wrote down the identification of the drive.
8. Stopped the array, went to Tools > New Config to reset the array. (otherwise you have missing devices errors)
9. Set the parity drive as Parity, and the data drive as Disk1.
10. Started the array. And after a night of parity rebuild the system was operational.
11. Reinstalled the Community Applications plugin 
12. Docker containers needed to be removed and readded from the Community Application.
13. Installed the duplicati docker, and mounted the docker /source at the local / point.
14. When creating a backup there to my OneDrive, i backup the /boot (which is the USB, and the appdata folder)

[JorgeB]

5 minutes ago, genie137 said:

• I had no cache drives, added all the drives (2x2TB) as data drives. And started the array.
• One of the drives reported no filesystem, which is the Partity drive. Wrote down the identification of the drive.

Just want to point out that when using just a single data drive, unRAID works like raid1, so either drive could be parity, you got one unmountable disk because they'll both have the same UUID and can't be mounted at the same time.