The power went out in my house and when I rebooted the unRAID server, all my drives are now showing up as blue - the system thinks these are all new drives.

 

I want to get the array back online the way it was but want to make sure I don't erase anything on any of the drives!

 

My options are:

1) Start the array - "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."

 

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

 

I'm assuming I should be doing a restore but I want to be 100% sure I will not lose my data.

 

Can someone help and let me know what I should do here?

 

Also, why did all the drives go blue??

 

Ok just an update - I decided to go ahead and do a restore.  However after I clicked the button, the screen refreshed and all of the drives are still showing blue!

 

I didn't change a thing on the array.  The server simply got powered off without being shut down properly.  I'm running 4.0 final.

 

If I now were to go ahead and start the array, would this bring everything back online and keep my data safe??

 

Please help - I'm stuck here with no access to my data and need to get my array back online without losing my data.

 

Please see attached screenshot.

As this is surely a common question, I hope we can get the answer and get it more clearly documented in the wiki.

 

 

Bill

I had a similar problem (posted below this thread), but mine was after adding a new drive.  It's a little scary at first when you see all your drives show up blue.

 

I would press the "Start" button and let the array rebuild parity. 

I would NOT check any box that indicated I wanted to format any drive.

 

I am not an expert on this, but the only time I've ever seen all blue indicators is when the array is not shut down cleanly and it suspects parity might be incorrect.

 

Now, I have seen, in an older beta release, where it thought all the disks were unformatted.  If you ever see that, DO NOT allow it to reformat all your drives. (don't check the format checkbox)

 

Joe L.

 

 

Thanks everyone for your replies...

 

Joe, I am just about "ready" to click start on the array and let it rebuild parity but what is scaring me is this:  When you add a new drive and start up the array, I recall that unRAID automatically adds the drive to the array AND formats it without giving you a choice... I'm worried this will happen to all my drives if I start the array - in which case I'll lose my data.  I also read the thread about the older beta release where after starting the array, unRAID thought the drives were unformatted and am wondering if it's possible that this could happen here as well with 4.0.  Not sure how I'd recover from a situation like that either...

 

If you wouldn't mind commenting on the above it would be much appreciated.

 

Tom, if you could whey in on this it would be much appreciated as well!

 

In addition to getting things back up and running so I can get at my data and add more drives, I would really like to know what caused all the drives to go blue - is an improper shutdown going to cause this to happen every time?  What is the recommended procedure to follow if this happens again?

 

Thanks!

Thanks everyone for your replies...

 

Joe, I am just about "ready" to click start on the array and let it rebuild parity but what is scaring me is this:  When you add a new drive and start up the array, I recall that unRAID automatically adds the drive to the array AND formats it without giving you a choice... I'm worried this will happen to all my drives if I start the array - in which case I'll lose my data.  I also read the thread about the older beta release where after starting the array, unRAID thought the drives were unformatted and am wondering if it's possible that this could happen here as well with 4.0.  Not sure how I'd recover from a situation like that either...

 

If you wouldn't mind commenting on the above it would be much appreciated.

 

Tom, if you could whey in on this it would be much appreciated as well!

 

In addition to getting things back up and running so I can get at my data and add more drives, I would really like to know what caused all the drives to go blue - is an improper shutdown going to cause this to happen every time?  What is the recommended procedure to follow if this happens again?

 

Thanks!

 

It won't format any drives without you telling it too.  You are safe to at least "start" the array.  I also remember unraid "automatically" adding a new drive to my array once, but it didn't do that with the second drive I just added.  Nonetheless, it did NOT auatomatically format any drives either time.  I had to tell it to.

 

 

Thanks, that is exactly the assurance I was waiting to hear.

 

I just started the array.  Both data drives mounted successfully and show the same free space as before.  The network shares are alive once again and all my data is there.  Looks like I just have to wait for the parity sync to finish and I'll be back where I left off.

 

Thanks again!  This is a huge worry off my shoulders - your advice is much appreciated.

 

(now all we need to do is find out WHY all the drives went blue)

Thanks, that is exactly the assurance I was waiting to hear.

 

I just started the array.  Both data drives mounted successfully and show the same free space as before.  The network shares are alive once again and all my data is there.  Looks like I just have to wait for the parity sync to finish and I'll be back where I left off.

 

Thanks again!  This is a huge worry off my shoulders - your advice is much appreciated.

 

(now all we need to do is find out WHY all the drives went blue)

I think they went blue because the array was not shut down cleanly in your power failure, and the array could not be certain parity was correct.

 

The last few times I added a drive, as far as i remember ... after shutting down using the web-interface and powering back up, the array did not automatically do anything with the newly added drive.  I had to go to the devices page and assign it to a new slot.

 

Then, it went through the process of clearing it... but only after asking that I check a box indicating I wanted to proceed.  Next, it asked about formatting it... again, pretty sure i had to check a box to affirm I wanted to proceed with the format. (according to a screen shot in a different thread, there is no checkbox at this point... just an unformatted drive listed, and a "Format" button visible and enabled.)

 

You should be fine as long as you don't ask it to format a drive that has data.  As far as I know, except for a bug I was involved with trouble-shooting in a much earlier version (and was subsequently fixed), unRaid will never ask to format an existing data drive. 

 

If it does... DO NOT press the "Format" button to format it... post an urgent e-mail to Tom instead.

 

Joe L

Ned-

 

The drives all showing up 'blue' has been reported from time-to-time, but we have not been able to reproduce this (in order to debug).

 

What 'blue' means is that the system detects a 'new' drive, that is, a drive in a slot that didn't have a drive before.  The only time they are all 'blue' is when the system is powered up with all new drives for the first time.  Obviously this isn't the case with your system.

 

The active configuration of the system is stored in the file 'config/super.dat' on the Flash.  If this file does not exist or is corrupted, then it will be initialized to show all drives as 'new'.  The power loss probably caused corruption of this file which got corrected when it re-booted.

 

The next time you shut down your server, plug the Flash into your PC, right-click it's drive letter, select Properties->Tools and click 'Check Now' to see if there are any corruptions.

 

Note: the 'Restore' button will also initialize the 'config/super.dat' (i.e., restoring it to it's initial state).

I've just had precisely the same symptom again on 4.3beta6.

 

Power cut, all blue, no ability to restore.

 

Just about to start parity, this is always really scarey.

 

Any chance you could take another look at what causes this Tom?

 

Thanks,

 

Mark.

I thought the drive/data is basically safe as long as it doesn't say unformatted.

What ever you do, do not format!

 

I had this the other day. Rebooted, the drive reported unformatted. (it wasn;'t mounted either)

I rebooted and the drive showed up ok, but a parity sync was automagically started.

 

I've just had precisely the same symptom again on 4.3beta6.

 

Power cut, all blue, no ability to restore.

 

If you haven't rebooted yet, it would be useful to see your syslog, to see if there is some indication of error, when unRAID attempts to use super.dat.

 

I've just had precisely the same symptom again on 4.3beta6.

 

Power cut, all blue, no ability to restore.

 

If you haven't rebooted yet, it would be useful to see your syslog, to see if there is some indication of error, when unRAID attempts to use super.dat.

 

 

Sorry had rebooted a couple of times to see if a reset would fix it.  Next time I'll keep the syslog.

 

What ever you do, do not format!

I know not to reformat, it's still a nervous time waiting to see that all has come back just fine, which it has on each previous occasion.

 

Thanks,

 

Mark.