USB Drive Dead. Can system saved?

[Difinity]

The USB drive my system was booting from has died. It is recognized as a drive when plugged in; but I cannot read it from WIndows or Linux, and the NAS system no longer sees it as a bootable drive.

My question:
Is there a safe way to rebuild the configuration without losing the data on the drives? I only have 4 drives in the system for storage and 2 more for cache, so it's not a complex system; but I don't want to assume I can just recreate the volumes and it wipes the drives on initialization.

 

[JohnDigital]

If you have a config backup you just need to reinstall to new boot device(s) and upload config, reboot. If you dont have config backups your process can go many different ways.

The data on your storage pools is safe. Just dont accidentally wipe them when reinstalling (disconnect if you have to).

 

[Difinity]

Additional Info: The USB dive (if it matters) is a Sandisk 32GB USB 3.0 and has been running for around 2 years. The version is 10 RC1 if that helps.

Disclaimer: I will be reconfiguring the setup soon and will install on SSD instead of USB drive then; but my immediate concern is recovering the data safely.

 

[Difinity]

Unfortunately, I don't have a backup of the config. That's why I staring down the barrel of an attempt to reconfigure.

 

[JohnDigital]

Well the good thing is, youll never not have a config backup again. Unfortunately youll likely be reinstalling and configuring from scratch. Id first get installed to new media with your main drives detached physically (power). Then shutdown and reconnect your disks. Boot up and force import your pool. Once imported, reconfigure everything and immediately make a config backup. Its so easy to do. There are even many scripts around that do it automagically. No excuse to not have hundreds of them around as they are TINY.

 

[JohnDigital]

Also to be noted, you shouldnt have lost anything on your 4TB disks. That flash drive is likely garbage though.

Ive honestly never had to reconfigure totally from scratch. All my reconfigurations have been done by choice. I imagine youll run into some trouble getting jails, VMs, and plugins going again. But with commitment it should be possible. Hollar out if you need any help, ill try to help you if im around.

 

[Heracles]

but I don't want to assume I can just recreate the volumes and it wipes the drives on initialization.

Hi,

You surely do NOT want to re-create the volumes. Should you create a new pool, FreeNAS will wipe your actual drive. You need to import the existing pool. Never in your process should you create a vdev, a pool or a volume.

Was your pool encrypted ? Hope it was not because if it was and you do not have the proper backups, you may have lost everyrhing.

If your pool was not encrypted, were you using it to store your system dataset ? If you did use it, you can find an automatic backup of your config in that one.

Do some research in the forum and you will found all the info and procedures.

Good luck,

 

[HoneyBadger]

The version is 10 RC1 if that helps

I'm going to suggest you don't restore any config backup from The Version That Shall Not Speak Its Name, and go ahead with a clean install of 11 or 12 onto new media. Import (not re-create) the pool, and it should be fine.

 

[Difinity]

Ok, I went ahead and dug up a 128GB SSD and installed 11.3-U5 (Latest "Legacy") onto the SSD. After install I connected the volume drives, booted, logged into console and imported pool as instructed. It instantly found pool and created/restored it. I then created a basic user/group and share to test.

It's all there!!! TYVM for the exact info I was looking for to save my bacon!
Happy New Year!