Anne Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 (edited) How to Recover Deleted Files from an UNRAID server running the XFS file system I deleted about 1.9TB of data consisting of several directories and their contents and multiple individual files, I was told there was no way to "undelete" the data in a XFS file system in unraid. I found a program called Recovery Explorer 8.4 which recovered all of my data. https://www.sysdevlabs.com/product.php?id=rxs6 REMEMBER... do NOT do ANYTHING that will write to the array after the files are deleted or you may write over the files you want to recover Below are the steps I took to recover my data 1. Stopped doing anything that might write to the array 2. Determined which HD the deleted data had been on 3. Stopped array 4. Power off server 5. Removed the HD determined in step 2, from the server 6. Connect the server HD to a different computer 7. Install Recovery Explorer software on this computer, not the server 8. Run the recover software and when the scan is finished the data is recovered. 9. Do a COPY of the recovered directories and files from the software to a hard drive 10. Install the hard drive with the recovered data in the server as an Unassigned Device 11. Reinstall the server array HD 12. Power the server back on 13. Mounted the Unassigned drive 13. Transferred the recovered data from the unassigned drive to the array , in my case back to HD it had been deleted from WARNING the scan process is LONG .. The array HD I scanned was a 10TB drive and it took about 22 hours BUT the program recovered ALL my data Edited April 13, 2021 by Anne MARK SOLVED 1 1 Quote Link to comment
Corvus Posted December 6, 2022 Share Posted December 6, 2022 '11. Reinstall the server array HD' What do you mean by this? Aren't there many HDs (hard drives) in an array? Something similar has happened to me for 5 drives, although I can't see why the files were deleted. Quote Link to comment
Anne Posted December 6, 2022 Author Share Posted December 6, 2022 I used the singular "HD" because I was desribing my problem and the solution to my problem where I determined the deleted information was on a single HD within my array. The solution shown was for corrective action on that single HD within a multiple HD array Quote Link to comment
Corvus Posted December 6, 2022 Share Posted December 6, 2022 (edited) I see. So I have a similar problem in which 5 out of 6 disks were mysteriously erased. I have no idea how that's possible, since I'm the only one with write access, and I haven't changed any hardware/software config in over a year. My game plan is to: - shut down the Unraid server, - take out one of the affected HDDs, - plug it into my Windows desktop PC (which has a brand new HDD connected to it to copy over recovered data), - run the recovery on the affected drive, - copy the data over to the spare drive, - connect the affected drive back into exactly the same SATA port on Unraid, - boot Unraid, - Start array, - Copy data from spare drive over the network to the original drive And rinse and repeat until all drives are done. I still don't know how I'm going to copy the recovered data from the spare drive (connected to my Windows PC) *specifically* to the original drive once it's plugged into Unraid, since the shares are designed to distribute data evenly across the disks. Any ideas? My aim is to preserve the file directory structure exactly as it was, because I have a bunch of Dockers that work together and rely on files located in specific directories, and it took me forever to set it up so it works correctly. I also would like to restore my VMs (which have also mysteriously been deleted) exactly as they were. Does this sound possible? Edited December 6, 2022 by Corvus Quote Link to comment
Anne Posted December 6, 2022 Author Share Posted December 6, 2022 Sorry, but I can not speak to your situation as my array is not set up the same way as yours, meaning I did not spread data over many disks.. My solution to deleted unraid server data may be unique because of that, I do not know.. My main purpose in putting forth my deleted data incident was to let people know that contrary to the popular theory of, " there is no way to recover deleted data on an unraid server ", that 1. recovery of deleted data on an unraid server is possible, 2. to let others know of the software product I used to successfully recover my deleted data, and 3. the recovery procedure I used was the procedure recommended in the version of the software I purchased. My deleted data situation was fairly simple, Your situation may require one of the more advanced versions of the software and the procedures that are recommended for that version of the software.. The software version I used, recovered my deleted data and allowed me to rebuild my array without loss of my data. Quote Link to comment
Corvus Posted December 6, 2022 Share Posted December 6, 2022 I see what you mean, but I think our situations aren't that dissimilar. The only difference is in the way the data is stored on the array. Nevertheless, I've found a way to copy the recovered data specifically to that original disk once it's installed back into Unraid. I believe with this considered, that the procedure should otherwise be the same. Quote Link to comment
Anne Posted December 7, 2022 Author Share Posted December 7, 2022 Good Luck.... Quote Link to comment
mdrodge Posted December 12, 2022 Share Posted December 12, 2022 (edited) What about 1 file that is in use? (on the cache drive) It's 1.30am and I definitely should have gone to bed...... a long time ago Long story short I deleted docker.img and I really don't want to set up 28 containers from scratch I was doing some work on server 3 (doesn't get much love) when I thought I'd remove libvert (this isn't my vm rig) but i'm half asleep and deleted docker.img to. Docker is fine at the moment and I was told I while ago (cant find that thread now but I've seen it in action before) that if you delete a file that is still in use it just becomes hidden/renamed so docker should be fine until I stop docker and then it will fully remove the file. If I have to set it up from scratch I'd lose aptalca/docker-dolphin since that has been deprecated witch I would hate to lose so another good reason to recover the file. Anyone know how to restore the file? Edited December 12, 2022 by mdrodge Quote Link to comment
Ludditus Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 Just want to add another shout out for Recovery Explorer. I had inadvertently wiped out most of my media share, RE allowed me to recover about 90% of the deleted files to an external drive. The rest I was able to pull down from an old AWS Glacier backup. It definitely was painstaking trying to figure out which recovered files ended up in which directories - a lot of $RecoveredFile subdirectories - but at least it was possible. And now, I have learned a valuable lesson and set most of my media share directories to read-only. 😒 Quote Link to comment
Anne Posted December 1, 2023 Author Share Posted December 1, 2023 Happy posting my original recovery success using Recovery Explorer is still helping others ...... I am a little confuded by your statement concerning directories, as the majority of my files were placed in their correct directories with few files or directories being orphaned in any way .. Anne Quote Link to comment
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