My USB drive died without warning. It was a sandisk micro and lasted a whole 4 months. Fortunately i have a backup. 

Unfortunately when i recover my backup to a new USB device my server won't boot. 

If i do a vanilla install from the USB flash creator it will boot, but that is no good as its missing all the config. If i recover from my backup using the USB flash creator i'm unable to access the web console. I get the same problem if i try to do a manual recovery. 

How can I find any info as to why it isn't fully booting? 

What are my options in terms of recovering some of the configuration?

 

Thanks!

 

Ended up picking my way through the config file restoring individual files from my backup over the top of of a vanilla install until i got the config i needed (disk layouts, cache drive, shares and plug-ins). 

it was time consuming and frustrating, wouldn't recommend it. 

 

I didn't see this quick enough but I probably could have saved you a lot of time.  If you just copied over the entire /config  directory/folder, you would have been done.  Everything should have worked.  You might have kept some leftover stuff that was not being used...  

 

By the way, I have seen several posts about failures of those Micro flash Drives.  Folks like them because they don't stick out as far and that would seem to provide protection against being damaged.  However, they seem to have a relativity high electrical failure rate.  Some have attributed to their small size and not being able to dissipate the heat.  I don't know what you use for your replacement but, if you used one, you might want to get a 'regular' size and have it available. 

Edited August 21, 20196 yr by Frank1940

Thanks for your reply @frank1940 !

i did try just copying the config directory in as you say, but i had the same problem. I suspect that my USB was on its way out when the back up was taken and that probably some files were corrupt in the backup. Anyway, parity check is running and its all looking good now. 

Yes, it the small USB did appear to overheat very quickly - I've used a regular sized USB drive for now, lets see if it lasts longer!