So i might have f'ed up.

I recently added two shucked drives (WDBBGB0080HBK) to my server, and a sata expansion card (Syba SY-PEX40039).

The plan is to upgrade parity, add old parity and 1 new drive to array. Then change the file system from reiserfs to xfs with the use of the unbalance plugin.

I tested the expansion card efore starting the preclear by moving the drives around, everything works.

After the preclear is done i started with upgrading the parity drive, everything is ok.

 

Then I try to add the old parity drive (without preclearing it) and also the new drive formatted as xfs. I get an error that says the new drive is "unmountable: no file system". While being stuck on "array is starting"

 

So, I do reboots and undo the changes, unmount old parity and new drive. And now it is stuck saying that the array is starting: mounting drives with no changes in read write from main or stats page.

 

Tried to be as detailed as possible, so the fuckups are clear...

tower-diagnostics-20181019-2303.zip

You can not change the formatting on the disk by changing file system from one format to another.  It is a every complex process if you do NOT want to lose data!!!   You need to read this Thread for what is involved:

 

       https://forums.unraid.net/topic/54769-format-xfs-on-replacement-drive-convert-from-rfs-to-xfs/

 

 

In the mean time, relax and don't do anything more.  There are some real Gurus that should be able to get that disk back online without data loss (unless you format it!). 

Edited October 19, 20187 yr by Frank1940

Thank you. I thought I had read somewhere that I could just move data from one drive to an empty drive, format the drive and move data back? Rinse and repeat. But, I will read up on it like I should have done earlier.

I'm not sure if you 'formatted' the drive outside of using the web GUI will work. I too tried this when I wanted to add a drive but there's a subtle difference between a disk formatted manually with xfs and those formatted via the GUI. I didn't stop to figure out why my manually formatted drive didn't just 'work' - just formatted via the gui and everything worked.

And you can definitely copy everything off a disk to somewhere else - remove/add/do whatever and then copy the data back - you can either mount manually or use the unassigned devices plugin to do assist.

I am sure I did not see the option to format the drive because I was freaking out. And I thought the old parity drive wouldn't need to be precleared, so I thought something went wrong as the array was not starting. well...

 

I guess I have to get the array up and running again, then I will add the drive that is precleared and then preclear the old parity drive.

The array is started on the diags, all disks mounted, can't you access your shares over lan?

I can access the flash drive from smb, nothing else. The docker tab tell me that I have to start array to view the containers.

And the parity is invalid on the dashboard page.

In the main page the button to start the array is gray, the other options that i can do is to reboot and power down the server.

 

Should I reboot and do a parity check in maintenance mode?

Try rebooting in safe mode

Beautifull! Thank you. The parity sync / data rebuild is runnig now with the original drives.

 

After it is done, can I add the new drives like originally planned?  Or should I preclear the old parity drive?

17 minutes ago, kfc said:

After it is done, can I add the new drives like originally planned?  Or should I preclear the old parity drive?

You can, you can also cancel the sync and add them them now to avoid the clearing, assuming no previous issues or warnings the old parity doens't need pre-clearing.

Canceled the sync, added the drives but cannot start the array again due to "You may not add new disk(s) and also remove existing disk(s)."

Sorry, assumed you knew, you need to do a new config:

 

-Tools -> New Config -> Retain current configuration: All -> Apply
-Assign the new disk(s) if needed

-start the array to begin parity sync

-new disks will likely need formatting.

Thank you for the help! They are formatting now.

The reason for it not starting was the User Scripts plugin.

Thanks for the support everyone.

58 minutes ago, kfc said:

The reason for it not starting was the User Scripts plugin.

 

More to the point, it was a script you were running that was stopping it.  Not the plugin itself.

9 hours ago, Squid said:

More to the point, it was a script you were running that was stopping it.  Not the plugin itself.

Yepp