My original flash drive started to fail intermittently and then completely.

 

Before it completely failed I was able to plug the drive into my windows machine and copy what was on there, hoping I would then be able to move those files onto a new flash drive and I would be all set.

 

I am having trouble getting this to work. Is it possible?

 

I also have an older backup of the flash on the HDDs on the server but with the new flash drive I do not know how to access the files on the server. This is my first time needing to restore a server after a flash failure and I am really unsure of what to do.

 

Any help would be great!

Thank you,

Kevin

Edited December 27, 20187 yr by bomburly

Prepare flash as a new install

Copy config folder from backup to flash

Boot

32 minutes ago, trurl said:

Prepare flash as a new install

Copy config folder from backup to flash

Boot

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

I am not sure what happened but the config folder did not backup correctly, I only have folders for EFI and syslinus. The Config copied as a file instead of a folder.. not sure why but I do not have a folder named config like I do on the new installation.

 

I do have a backup on the server. How can i access the files on my server now that the original flash drive is dead?

Do you know what your disk assignments were?

 

Such as a screenshot? Or we could get them from a recent syslog if you have one.

2 hours ago, trurl said:

Do you know what your disk assignments were?

 

Such as a screenshot? Or we could get them from a recent syslog if you have one.

Im not sure if I do. Where is the syslog located.

 I searched my flashdrive backup for one but the only thing that came up was a file titled 'changes'

syslog would have been something you downloaded before. It is included in Diagnostics we usually ask for when people ask for help here.

 

The reason I ask about your disk assignments is because you must not accidentally assign a data disk to the parity slot or it would be overwritten with parity.

 

You can assign all disks as data and none as parity. That would be enough to get where you can read your disks and copy the flash backup.

 

Obviously the array is not an ideal location for flash backup but we can discuss alternatives after you get going again.

On 12/27/2018 at 5:24 PM, trurl said:

syslog would have been something you downloaded before. It is included in Diagnostics we usually ask for when people ask for help here.

 

The reason I ask about your disk assignments is because you must not accidentally assign a data disk to the parity slot or it would be overwritten with parity.

 

You can assign all disks as data and none as parity. That would be enough to get where you can read your disks and copy the flash backup.

 

Obviously the array is not an ideal location for flash backup but we can discuss alternatives after you get going again.

I finally got around to restoring the array. I was able to get unraid running on a new flash drive and mounted both of my storage drives (disk 1 and parity) as disk 1 and disk 2 to pull the backup of the flash drive off the array.

 

From there it was pretty straight forward to restore the array and recreate the parity drive! Thank you so much for your help!

Bomburly

Edited January 5, 20197 yr by bomburly

On 12/27/2018 at 5:24 PM, trurl said:

Obviously the array is not an ideal location for flash backup but we can discuss alternatives after you get going again.

I use an external drive, formatted NTFS so it can be easily read on another computer, and automount it with Unassigned Devices. I have CA Backup put my flash backup there. Other people use a share on another computer mounted using UD for writing their CA flash backup.

 

And, you can always download a zipped copy of flash at any time by simply going to Main - Boot Device - Flash - Flash Backup.

14 minutes ago, trurl said:

I use an external drive, formatted NTFS so it can be easily read on another computer, and automount it with Unassigned Devices. I have CA Backup put my flash backup there. Other people use a share on another computer mounted using UD for writing their CA flash backup.

 

And, you can always download a zipped copy of flash at any time by simply going to Main - Boot Device - Flash - Flash Backup.

How often does the data on the Unraid flash change? is it just when new dockers/ system config changes are made? I backed my flash up with the zip file on my google cloud. If I do not manual change anything on the server do I need up update the flash backup?

Every setting in the webUI is stored on flash so it can be reapplied at boot time. So if you make a change in the webUI a new backup would be appropriate. It is especially important that your backup have your current disk assignments as I may have already mentioned.

 

Something that many people worry about is setting up their dockers again. Whenever you add or edit a container, those settings are saved to flash and you can easily recall those settings using the Previous Apps feature on the Apps page (Community Applications).

 

And of course lots of other settings from the webUI that you might not want to have to do over.

19 hours ago, trurl said:

Every setting in the webUI is stored on flash so it can be reapplied at boot time. So if you make a change in the webUI a new backup would be appropriate. It is especially important that your backup have your current disk assignments as I may have already mentioned.

 

Something that many people worry about is setting up their dockers again. Whenever you add or edit a container, those settings are saved to flash and you can easily recall those settings using the Previous Apps feature on the Apps page (Community Applications).

 

And of course lots of other settings from the webUI that you might not want to have to do over.

Thank you for all of your help