Disk Disabled - Red X - Help w/ Diagnostic Zip Wanted


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Diagnostic zip file attached.

 

I had a very new disk become disabled today due to read errors.  The log shows "program smartctl is using a deprecated SCSI ioctl, please convert it to SG_IO".  I think this means that the SATA HBA controller card, to which this drive is attached, is problematic/not supported.  And I should replace it, probably with an LSI HBA.

 

I'm looking for confirmation of this, or any suggestions.

 

Update:  1. I rebooted to check the disk SMART data. And received pop up notification "Array Turned Good - Array has 0 disks with read errors."

              2. I ran the SMART short self-test.  Completed with no errors.

 

Thank you in advance for your help.

 

 

Edited by _0m0t3ur
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Thanks for your input, johnnie.black.  Yeah, the disk is perfect.  Zero errors of any kind.

 

As a little backstory, I had a similar thing occur on a different disk a few days ago, showing read errors and disabling the disk, but without this error message "program smartctl is using a deprecated SCSI ioctl, please convert it to SG_IO".  At that time, reading the logs, I saw the issue related to the SATA cable.  I replaced the cable and rebuilt the disk.  Everything seemed fine.  But then this happened with another disk.

 

I replaced the SATA HBA with an LSI 9201-8i with brand new SAS-to-SATA cables.  This should fix the problem.  All my other disks running from onboard SAS or SATA2 have been peforming great.

 

I appreciate your input.  Thanks again.

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The 9201-8i was installed with new SAS-to-SATA cables.  Booted fine.  Started rebuild as was instructed but noticed that the file system status showed "Unmountable: no file system".  I paused the rebuild to find out whether this was normal.

 

While the rebuild was paused, the system got inadvertently shut off while I was gone.  When I turned the server back on it booted fine through the BIOS, but failed to load the unRAID thumb drive.  I get "Reboot and Select proper Boot device".

 

I tried the thumb drive in three different USB 2.0 ports.  No luck.  The thumb drive is fine.  I am able to browse the device when connecting it to my Macbook.

Edited by _0m0t3ur
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****Update:  There were kids involved.  Turns out my son's friend was "helping" and they formatted the disk that showed "Unmountable: no file system" and then ended up turning the server off.

 

When I returned home, the server was off.  (I thought this odd, since it's connected to a UPS that is tested working.)  That's when I couldn't boot into the unRAID thumb drive, as described above.

 

 

What steps are recommended to get my thumb drive working and my array up?  Can I use parity to rebuild the disk that was formatted?

 

I will wait to get some help.  Trying to avoid a data loss catastrophe.

 

Thanks in advance.

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You can definitely start again.   Make sure you have a copy of your license file to put into the config folder after redoing the USB drive.   Existiing (intact) data drives will come up with their existing data intact.   You will, however have to reinstall any apps that you had installed as their settings will have been lost as will any extra settings around Shares or users.    Make sure you do not accidentally assign a data disk as a parity drive as that would promptly wipe its contents.    If in doubt start without assigning a parity drive and check the disks contain what you expect as you can always assign the parity later.

 

Regarding the drive which started the problem it is not that unusual for it come up as unmountable if a write to it fails.   In the vast majority of cases running a file system check/repair gets it back without any data loss.   What you must NOT do is select the option to format a disk as that writes a new empty file system to the disk, updating parity accordingly as it does so and effectively wiping access to the data on the drive.    At this point your best chance of getting data back from that drive is to have it out of the array and run a disk recovery program (XFS Exploere on Windows being an example), or else get professional data recovery services involved (which can be expensive).

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itimpi - appreciate your reply.  I was able to copy all the files off the UNRAID thumb drive to a folder on my Macbook.  Looks like there are options to restore network, drive assignments, drive settings, and share settings.

 

I can't seem to find anything in my search on how to get the current thumb drive to boot, without doing a START OVER.  Is this possible?  Is it as simple as rerunning the "make bootable" from the thumb drive?

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1 minute ago, DoItMyselfToo said:

itimpi - appreciate your reply.  I was able to copy all the files off the UNRAID thumb drive to a folder on my Macbook.  Looks like there are options to restore network, drive assignments, drive settings, and share settings.

 

I can't seem to find anything in my search on how to get the current thumb drive to boot, without doing a START OVER.  Is this possible?  Is it as simple as rerunning the "make bootable" from the thumb drive?

If the drive cannot be written to then there is definitely a problem with it.      You could try to download the ZIP file of the Unraid release and then extract all the bz* type files over-writing the ones on the USB drive.    This would fix any of them being corrupted- but it does require you being able to write to the USB stick.    You might want to check that the USB drive does not have a switch to ‘lock’ it.     This not very common nowadays but they do exist.

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Ok.  That makes sense.  I was able to copy all the files off the thumb drive with no problem.  Now, I'll download the Unraid ZIP file and try to copy the bz* files to the thumb drive, overwriting them.  I'll report back.  Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Edited by _0m0t3ur
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I ran make_bootable_mac for good measure.  At first the thumb drive would not boot.  Then I noticed that the option rom was enabled for the slot where the new LSI SAS HBA is installed.  So, I disabled that and rebooted.  Unraid booted up fine.  So, this was the culprit.  Not the thumb drive.  Lol.

 

Here is a link I found after figuring out my problem, where another user has the same problem unable to boot.  The screen shots here are identical to my experience with my SuperMicro X8DT6.  I read in the FreeNAS forum that some users have reported problems with multiple LSI 2008 SAS controllers with different firmware installed on each.

 

 

 

So at this point, I can either pull the formatted array disk to try to do file recovery or run a rebuild on the disk to zero the disk/update parity for the array.  I'm choosing to lose the data.

 

To execute the rebuild, I would:

 

1. unassign the drive.

2. start the array.

3.  stop the array.

4.  reassign the drive.

5. start the array.

 

a parity rebuild should begin.

 

Is this what you recommend?

Edited by _0m0t3ur
Clarify some details to help the next person.
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3 hours ago, DoItMyselfToo said:

Well, when I started the array, unRAID automatically started a parity sync/rebuild.

Ok.    However the disk contents are being emulated while doing a rebuild and what will be seen after the rebuild is exactly what is available in the emulated contents.   If as you said a format command was used then Unraid will sim-lay be rebuilding the disk with an empty file system.   At this point is the disk mounting or still showing an ‘unmountable’ state?   The latter would be more promising as it would suggest a format was NOT done and a file system repair is still possible.

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I had already decided that I was not going to try recovering anything on this disk.  Turns out data on this disk was the least problematic to lose, if I were going to lose anything.  The disk showed the orange triangle (said it was emulating but it was really emulating 'no data'); yet, I needed to get this drive out of this error state and functioning inside the array with full parity.

 

All my drives are near brand new with zero SMART errors of the physical disks, so I'm not concerned about full disk failures for the immediate future, but I also didn't want to chance being parity unprotected in the event that I had another connection problem, which should also be a very low probability with brand new cables and new LSI SAS HBA.  So, basically, I just needed to get this sorted and move on.

 

I let unRAID do it's parity sync, which is nearing its end.  This will get rid of the orange triangle and bring the array back to full parity, leaving me with the one disk blanked out, but I'm already fine with that.

 

I had searched the forum, trying to find similar scenarios of formatting in the array and the best way to move forward with getting the offending disk out of an error state.  But I kept finding posts focused on recovering data, and when data was said to be recovered, the conversations ended.

 

The other thought I had was to use New Config.  But decided that just letting unRAID perform the parity sync was the easiest thing to do.

 

The problem with unRAID is that it works too well.  It runs error free for a year or two, and during that time one forgets stuff about how this thing all works, then when there's a problem, it's like one has unRAID Alzheimer's.

 

 

 

 

Edited by _0m0t3ur
Clarified some details to help the next person.
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