Help, data disappeared...

[RickeyP21]

First, this is my first post and I want to thank everyone for the wealth of knowledge I have already found.

Now on to my problem lol. Let me begin by saying I am lost when it comes to command line interfaces and such. I built a NAS box Friday, and installed FreeNas yesterday and have had it running for about 24 hours now. Not being familiar with the command line stuff, I used the web gui for everything I have done so far. I installed two (2) new 3TB hard drives and installed freeNAS on an 8GB USB stick.

Once it came on and I saw the ip, I went to my computer and used the browser to connect. I used UFS and under storage created two volumes, one named Movies for movies, and the other named PicsMusic for pictures and music. I then created a CIFS share for each of these volumes, allowing me to browse to them on my windows 7 pc.

I created a a music and pictures folder on the PicsMusic share, then cut/pasted all of my pictures and music to the Appropriate folders. I did the same on the Movies drive. Then I installed Plex using the GUI and pointed the shares correctly, I thought. I used the browse for each jail and in source I found the folders I wanted, and in destination I pointed them to the media folder in the plex jail. I opened plex and it was all working. I was able to stream to my TV, laptop, and multiple iPhones/iPads.

Once this was all done and working, I shutdown the server to move it to its permanent location. When it came back on, I could not get the plex service to start. I checked my jails and everything was the same. Tried stopping and restarting them, nothing would let me turn Plex back on.

Looking at the files, I had everything going into the media folder, rather than separate folders for each in the jail. So I created the folders, and since Plex wasn't working I installed it again (thinking it would "reinstall", rather that install a second time like it did)

This time I did the same thing, but pointed the destinations to the new folders I created under the jail for plexserver2. I was now able to turn on plexserver2, but still could not turn on plexserver1. So I browsed to Plexserver2 and was able to add the movies and TV shows folders easily. After they updated, I tried to add the folders for music and pictures, but nothing happened.

In windows I went to the shares and the PicsMusic share shows completely empty. There is no data at all, only the empty folders for Music and Pictures. All music and pics are gone. Looking at the active volume through the FreeNas web GUI, the drive shows that it is using 24.0 KiB (8%). Available shows 2.4tb out of 2.6tb. Obviously, the unaccounted space must be my pictures and music files, but I have no clue how to get to them or even if I can. For the record, both drives show healthy and working fine, other than the data has disappeared.

I might be a moron at this stuff, but I do actually have a backup of my pictures. The music I can always put back on there, but the pictures backup is offsite and I will have to download them all, which will take a significant amount of time. If possible I would prefer to recover this information. Is there anything I can do?

 

[cyberjock]

I really don't know how to help you. THeres so many steps that "could" have gone wrong I really don't know where to start.

BUT, if you are using UFS you are already on the losing team. UFS support is gone from FreeNAS. So I'd either go with ZFS (and make sure you meet the minimum hardware) or look at another OS to use.

 

[RickeyP21]

I really don't know how to help you. THeres so many steps that "could" have gone wrong I really don't know where to start.

BUT, if you are using UFS you are already on the losing team. UFS support is gone from FreeNAS. So I'd either go with ZFS (and make sure you meet the minimum hardware) or look at another OS to use.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I knew that the UFS stuff was old. But when I was trying to create the volumes i wated one hard drive for movies, one for music and pictures. I have another backup solution, but I could not figure out how to set it up this way with ZFS, every option seemed to be a raid of some sort.

I think it can handle ZFS; It has an i7 with 16GB memory. It is pc hardware though, not server stuff. After getting it up and running so fast last night, I'm running into one problem after another today though. (Probably because I got it up and running so fast yesterday lol)

Now I have lost half my data, plexserver2 will not show up on my Sony TV the way plexserver1 did, and plex is no longer streaming any of my avi files to any device (iPad, iphone, pc, Sony tv) after they worked fine on plexserver1.

At this point, I am thinking you're right: I'll find a new OS. FreeNas is probably great for those of you with a lot of experience in it/other Linux distros. For those of us who are too dependent on a mouse? Not so much lol.

 

[RickeyP21]

Cyber, I've decided to do a clean install and restart from scratch. This time I will use some of the guides I have seen to do the install and plugins from command line, as nothing I have seen goes over using the web GUI. I will also use ZFS.

My only question is, if I remove the drive that had the pics and music on it and plug it into my windows pc before doing the new install, is there any software that might recover some of the music I lost? I am already downloading my pictures from the external backup, but ripping all my CDs and downloading my iTunes files again will take forever. If I could save some time this way, it would be great.

 

[SweetAndLow]

nevermind i'm not familiar enough with ufs on freenas.

 

[sremick]

I think it can handle ZFS; It has an i7 with 16GB memory. It is pc hardware though, not server stuff. After getting it up and running so fast last night, I'm running into one problem after another today though. (Probably because I got it up and running so fast yesterday lol)

Actually, it's quite likely it's because your hardware isn't really suited for handling ZFS. You mention you're aware it's not server-grade hardware, which FreeNAS really needs. And by virtue of being an i7, it's not ECC memory, also very important for ZFS. There are stickies about this.

FreeNas is probably great for those of you with a lot of experience in it/other Linux distros.

FreeNAS isn't Linux, thank goodness.

Cyber, I've decided to do a clean install and restart from scratch. This time I will use some of the guides I have seen to do the install and plugins from command line, as nothing I have seen goes over using the web GUI. I will also use ZFS.

Considering your hardware, I think you're setting yourself up for failure and data loss again.

My only question is, if I remove the drive that had the pics and music on it and plug it into my windows pc before doing the new install, is there any software that might recover some of the music I lost? I am already downloading my pictures from the external backup, but ripping all my CDs and downloading my iTunes files again will take forever. If I could save some time this way, it would be great.

While you might consider "taking forever" to be unpleasant, likely you'd find it preferable to the cost of data recovery services.

 

[cyberjock]

I think sremick pretty summed it up. There are some UFS tools that exist, but as you can't even guarantee the recovered file isn't corrupted (and playing it for 2 seconds doesn't validate the entire file is intact) you're better of restoring from backups.

 

[RickeyP21]

Well, to quote another post by Cyberjock regarding desktop processors vs server processors, including the i-series,

"Third, I think there is definitely the possibility that a Xeon could do better with some things. Now which ones those are is another debate.

In conclusion, nothing is conclusive"

(Sorry, I am not sure how to link the whole reply, but here is a link to the post: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/do-i-really-need-a-xeon.17327/)

Checking the requirements in the freenas documentation, I do not see anything mentioned about the RAM HAVING to be ECC, either. According to the documentation, my rig should be able to run freenas, especially for home use with only a couple of users.

Sremick, in case you didn't notice in the original post, I have not used ZFS, but the older UFS. I don't know how the problem I have can be that my rig is not capable of handling ZFS as you imply, since I have not attempted it yet. As for the costs of data recovery, again you must have missed what I said. I was asking for software that I might try, not for data recovery services. But thanks so much for your useful input. I actually did think that freenas was some sort of Linux based OS. That clarification will be very helpful as I learn this stuff on my own.

 

[mjws00]

I doubt your hardware blew away your data. It's only been there a few hours. This is just a learning curve. Or possibly a user error and you blew it away some how. But I suspect it's there and you just need to find it, then move it.

You have a functional freebsd box from the command line. Dig around your file system and try and see what's up. You CAN mount ufs from windows with a number of tools. Here is one ufs2Tools.

If you want a nice GUI try PC-BSD for native UFS support. Realistically all the solutions have a curve and there are so many variables it is tough to help you. Not that many are using UFS anymore, so the pool is small to draw from. Sorry.

Good luck. Keep reading and learning and you'll get there.

 

[cyberjock]

That's because it's not a requirement. It's a damn good idea, and we do make people aware of the serious consequences, but as there isn't even a solid way to prove a setup is using ECC you can't code it to require it.

If you know what you are doing, ECC is just one of those "I know why I need it and I'm gonna use it" and requires no explanation.

 

[RickeyP21]

I doubt your hardware blew away your data. It's only been there a few hours. This is just a learning curve. Or possibly a user error and you blew it away some how. But I suspect it's there and you just need to find it, then move it.

You have a functional freebsd box from the command line. Dig around your file system and try and see what's up. You CAN mount ufs from windows with a number of tools. Here is one ufs2Tools.

If you want a nice GUI try PC-BSD for native UFS support. Realistically all the solutions have a curve and there are so many variables it is tough to help you. Not that many are using UFS anymore, so the pool is small to draw from. Sorry.

Good luck. Keep reading and learning and you'll get there.

Excellent information. Thank you so much. I am pretty sure it was something I screwed up lol. I will definitely do some reading and check more thoroughly in the system tonight, if for no other reason than to get some experience. I'm gonna try the software you mentioned too if I cannot find it myself. Thanks for the help and encouragement!

 

[gpsguy]

Are you absolutely sure that you used UFS? One can use ZFS on a single drive.

Some users have "lost/hidden" their data by creating a dataset with the same name as an existing share. After unmounting the dataset they were able to access their files.


Sent from my phone

 

[RickeyP21]

Are you absolutely sure that you used UFS? One can use ZFS on a single drive.

Some users have "lost/hidden" their data by creating a dataset with the same name as an existing share. After unmounting the dataset they were able to access their files.


Sent from my phone

I thought for sure I chose UFS. Maybe you are right. Your post made perfect sense to me why the space was being taken on the hard drive, but the files were hidden. Especially since I had reinstalled plex (creating plexserver2) and created the exact same folders for my plexserver2 jails.

When I got home this evening, I took a look at the jails and saw that the old jails setup for Plexserver1 were still running. I turned off the plex services, stopped and then unmounted all jails, and when I went to my PC and looked at the CIF shares all my files were there. I'm transferring the data now. Thank you so much GPSGuy!