6.6 - USB BOOT DRIVE FAILED

[marzy]

Looks like my USB boot drive has failed, I need to do some further testing, but reading the wiki it says to create a post if I didn't know my array order before the failure.

[marzy]

So USB was dead, replaced it with a new one and then went to replace key and accidentally typed the wrong email address in, now there is no other solution other than to wait for support to answer? This is poor. How do they not have an online portal for managing keys.

[trurl]

Do you have a copy of the original license .key file? You can automatically get a new .key by putting the old .key on a new flash / new install and going to Registration, as explained here:

 

https://wiki.unraid.net/UnRAID_6/Changing_The_Flash_Device

 

Do you have a backup of your old flash?

[marzy]

All sorted, unraid support got back to me with a new key. Amazingly even with a fresh unraid install on a new usb key. Shares and dockers are just working. All the main features, are back up. Just have to mess around with config later on. 

28 minutes ago, trurl said:

Do you have a copy of the original license .key file? You can automatically get a new .key by putting the old .key on a new flash / new install and going to Registration, as explained here:

 

https://wiki.unraid.net/UnRAID_6/Changing_The_Flash_Device

 

Do you have a backup of your old flash?

No I didn't backup. Lesson learnt.

[marzy]

For anyone else that may come across this thread, the main issue when you don't know your array positions is the parity drives. Simply put all your drives in the array, position doesn't matter. Then you will have one or two drives which say they need formatting, these are your parity drives, record the drives, stop the array, go to tools, new config, select all to keep settings, then go back to your array setup and set those drives as the parity.

[Frank1940]

2 hours ago, marzy said:

For anyone else that may come across this thread, the main issue when you don't know your array positions is the parity drives. Simply put all your drives in the array, position doesn't matter. Then you will have one or two drives which say they need formatting, these are your parity drives, record the drives, stop the array, go to tools, new config, select all to keep settings, then go back to your array setup and set those drives as the parity.

If you use this procedure (perfectly fine by the way) and you find that you have more drives that need formatting then the number of parity drives you had in the original configuration (One unformatted drive with single parity, two unformatted drives with dual parity), STOP at that point and ask for help.  Something is wrong and you may will make the problem worst if you proceed.

Edited April 3, 2019 by Frank1940

[trurl]

1 hour ago, marzy said:

Shares and dockers are just working. All the main features, are back up. Just have to mess around with config later on. 

Your shares exist because the shares are just the top level folders on cache and array. But since you lost their settings, all of your user shares will have default settings.

 

And your dockers will work until you try to update or edit them. Then it won't know how they were configured since that information is on flash.

[electron286]

  I realize I should start a new topic probably... but...  I have a FLASH that I just found is DEAD, I could not read from it, so I attempted to re-boot the server, only to find there was no way to boot anymore.  😞

 

  Tried looking and changing the BIOS settings, NO FLASH, moved the FLASH drive to another computer, NOTHING, no flashing light to even try to be recognized it is toasted.

 

  It is very straight forward to fix this with the new 6.X platform, get a new flash, put the old key on it, etc...  My problem is a little different.

 

  I was still running 4.x on this server... I am not sure if it is even 64-bit capable, since I was not upgrading I did not worry about it.  I should be able to still put 6.X on a new USB FLASH drive, put my old KEY on it, since I have LOTS of backups of my keys, (just not my full configuration files, sadly), and get a new key for my new FLASH.  BUT, IF my server is NOT 64-bit (of course I could get the key on another computer that is 64-bit), will I be able to use a new FLASH with NEW KEY, on the older 4.x software, and use it as I had in the past?  Of course, I expect I will need to check or re-build parity to be safe, but that is minor compared to bringing my server and data back on-line.

 

  Again, sorry for not making a new post, but I thought, (probably wrong to think at the moment), that since this post was new, people may already be in the right frame of mind for this challenge and question.

 

  Thanks for any responses and ideas.  I will also start doing some testing, and hopefully may have everything running again by the time I check for a reply.

[itimpi]

I know that older keys work on newer releases, but I am not sure if anyone has ever validated the converse.    You might need to contact Limetech to be sure.

 

Having said that I would think the first thing to do is create a new USB drive with the current v6 release and see if you can even get it to boot?    You do not even need a key present to test that.   If it does boot your system is 64-bit capable so it might be worth thinking about taking the opportunity to migrate to v6?   There have been other users who went directly from the 4.7 release to a v6 release.

 

if the system is only 32-bit capable then you might want to ask Limetech to send you a link to the 5.06 release which I believe was the last 32-bit version.

[Frank1940]

You probably should have started a new thread but I believe the OP's original issue has been addressed.   

 

You can start by reading this portion of the version 5 to 6 upgrade  WIKI.  First thing to determine if your hardware is 64 bit capable.

 

    https://wiki.unraid.net/index.php/Upgrading_to_UnRAID_v6#Basic_hardware_requirements

 

Then read the rest of that WIKI.   

 

Basically, you will be able to use the hard disks as I seem to recall that you will have to run the 'New Permissions' script found under the Tools tab. If you had any plugins installed, you will have to see if there are replacements for them.    

[electron286]

Thanks, just where my mind was at.  Just started puting 6.x on a new FLASH now.  Will see if it boots in a little bit.  I will probably take the opportunity to update to 6.x if the hardware is 64-bit, Now have a 6.x server running and verified for my uses, and another in a test configuration.  I just had no reason in the past to take down this old 4.x server, and a few reasons NOT to go to 5.x.  I have made quite a few install backup sets of various versions of 4.x, and 5.x however, if I needed to move to 5.x now.

 

 

[electron286]

4 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

You probably should have started a new thread but I believe the OP's original issue has been addressed.   

 

You can start by reading this portion of the version 5 to 6 upgrade  WIKI.  First thing to determine if your hardware is 64 bit capable.

 

    https://wiki.unraid.net/index.php/Upgrading_to_UnRAID_v6#Basic_hardware_requirements

 

Then read the rest of that WIKI.   

 

Basically, you will be able to use the hard disks as I seem to recall that you will have to run the 'New Permissions' script found under the Tools tab. If you had any plugins installed, you will have to see if there are replacements for them.    

yes, and true, I guess I was not really seeking a solution to my situation, as much as wondering if anyone knew if new keys could be used o old 4.x.  And again, now I even say that I realize I really SHOULD have started a new post in the correct place!  I guess I am not thinking to clearly a the moment.  Two of my servers are now down, both 4.x.  The first one is likely a power supply, or motherboard, it died last night, the second is the one I was asking about above, with the bad FLASH, that was running till I shut it down to move it out of the way to work n the the other failed server.  So it now has taken the priority for repair.  Old hardware both servers have been on-line 24/7 since March 2013, both were OLD hardware before I ever put unRAID on them!