Help Please!!

[barrygordon]

Last night I had a major power failure (3+ hours) which I slept through.  My Backup Generator decided to have a problem so I lost power to the unRaid tower and it shut down after the UPS battery was depleted.   

 

I have been using unRaid since 2009 with no major problems and no loss of any data. The system is very robust with n device failure (ever).  I believe I am using The latest version of unRaid but am Not sure  (Side note: I am 79 year of age and just returned from major surgery on 4/19/2019. I am more tired than usual and not mentally back to my usual self, so please bear with me.

 

I can start the system and get to the bios with no problem and all the settings look quite normal

 

When I boot from the unraid USB-HDD It seems to start okay. I get the messages:  "bzimge...OK" and  "bzroot...OK" followed by a bunch of text messages with no stop until the last message "unpacking initramfs"

 

The system then halts for a few seconds and then the screen goes crazy with gibberish scrolling by at a rapid rate.  Interspaced in the gibberish are some readable text messages such as:

 

Unexpected long file name <gibberish>      Not autocorrecting this

 

Unfinished long file name <gibberish>    Start may have been overwritten

 

Long file name fragment <gibberish> found outside LFN sequence (Maybe the start bit is missing on the last fragment) Not autocorrecting this.

 

/config/plugins/statistics.sender /\ ...<gibberish>    Bad start file name  Auto renaming it  Renamed to FSCK0004,xxx

 

As long as I don't shut the system off it keeps doing this scrolling with gibberish.

 

My thoughts are that either there is a problem with the USB system on the mobo (don't think so as it seems to read bzimage and bzroot okay.

 

I would like to build a new USB hard drive with the latest version 6.x.x but I am not sure how to do this and am concerned about my license key. 

 

Can someone point me to where the instructions are for building a new USB HDD with unRaid on it or just help me out with thoughts and advice?  I really want to get my unRaid system back on the air!! 

 

I have attached a photo of the screen to show what I am seeing

 

[JorgeB]

That suggests a problem with the flash drive, run chkdsk on a Windows/Mac PC, if that's not enough overwrite all the bz* files using the zip from latest stable release.

[barrygordon]

Thanks, I will try that when I get back from the Doctor.  Cancer is no fun, However when caught at stage 1 and completely removed it leaves one with a healthy dose of mortality.  I just hope most of my DNA has long Telomere's.  For those interested in this OT comment I suggest reading "The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer".

For info on Telomere's and lifestyle look at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3370421/

[JorgeB]

2 minutes ago, barrygordon said:

Cancer is no fun,

Sure isn't, get well soon.

[barrygordon]

I just tried what was suggested.  I copied the following files from the unzipped archive for 6.6.7 to my non-working USB-HDD:

bzfirmware, bzimage, bzmodules, bzroot, bzroot-gui.

 

I then tried to boot the system. I first tried it in normal mode and the same result occurred.  I let it run for a few minutes as it kept scrolling on the screen.

 

I then tried to boot in safe mode with the same result.  I decided to let it keep running for a while (it is still running scrolling the screen) and I'll give it about 10 minutes and then stop it.

 

(10 minutes later) There seems to be some consistency to what is scrolling on the screen.  The majority is gibberish, but the following shows up fairly regularly:

 

/CONFIG/PLUGINS/statistics.sender / \ 202, <gibberish> 

Bad short File Name (<gibberish>)

Auto-renaming it.

Renamed to FSCK005.<number>   Where number increases with each message cycle.

 

I hope that it is not accessing and writing on any of my data drives!!

 

I guess the next step would be to build a fresh USB-HDD from scratch.  I have a number of scandisk cruzer 32G USB-HDD's and will use one of them.  Assuming I am more successful doing this, I am concerned about the licensing, as I do not wish to pay for another key.  I guess I just need to follow the startup instructions as I have not done this in many many years.

 

I can get the same motherboard refurbished for a reasonable price or a new one at an exorbitant price.  Perhaps I should do that to eliminate the motherboard (USB Controller).

 

 

Advice?  Thoughts? Anything?

[barrygordon]

Things are much better (I think).

 

I built a new boot USB-HDD using the USB Creator, a very nice piece of work. The system booted fine. I registered with a temporary key and rebooted.

 

The array is empty as no drives have been assigned. All my drives are there but I have no idea which disk is the Parity Drive.  I know it is one of two, as there are only two 3 TB drives all the others are 2 TB.  So my first problem is which drive is the parity drive.  How do I figure that out???

 

My second problem will be the numbering of the data drives.  Does it matter? The array was fine before it stopped.  All the drives were working.  What happens if they get different numbers? does the system need to rebuild the entire array, i.e. the Parity drive assuming all the other drives are correct?  My third problem will be the naming of shares, that will not be hard as I did not have that many shares.

 

Any assistance in this will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Vr2Io]

It dosen't matter for numbering of data drive if single parity, just don't assign a data disk be parity, otherwise data will be lost.

 

2 direction you may consider,

 

1. Copy some necesary file from old USB to resume disk config.

2a. Use a plugin "Unassigned Devices" to exam which disk not mountable to identify which is parity.

or

2b. Assign all disks be data disk, check which not mountable to identify which is parity.

 

52 minutes ago, barrygordon said:

My third problem will be the naming of shares, that will not be hard as I did not have that many shares.

Once array start, the shares will appear automatic, but all parameter will be default.

[itimpi]

The important point to note is that you must not assign a data drive to the parity slot or its contents will be lost.

 

The standard‘ technique for identifying which is the parity disk on a single parity system if you are not sure is;

• assign ALL the drives as data drives
• start the array

At this point one disk should show as ‘unmountable’ - this will be the parity drive as the parity drive has no file system.  Make a note of the serial number of the parity drive.   If more than one drive shows as unmountable stop and ask for advice.

 

you now proceed as follows:

• stop the array
• reset the array using Tools->New Config
• re-assign the drives as wanted.   You can either assign the (now known) parity drive at this point or omit it and add it later.  On single parity systems the order of the drives is not important.  
• start the array and check that all your data appears intact.   If you assigned the parity drive in the previous step and you were reasonably certain you had good parity you can check the box to say parity is good before you start the array to avoid rebuilding parity.

a similar technique can be used to detect parity in a dual parity system, but in such a case two drives would show as unmountable.   Also since parity1 and parity2 are not interchangeable and the order of the data drives matters to parity2 you should always rebuild the parity drives contents from the data drives.