corrupt or invalid GPT detected - HELP!!!

[themacmeister]

I have a 12TB FreeNAS box (4x3TB WD RED) that I transplanted from an old Core-2-Quad machine to a newer Core i7-2600 machine.

I am using the same boot USB stick, but the above message appears at boot for one of my drives (and therefore the ZFS pool is not loaded, and I have no ZFS volume available).

I shuffled the drive around, and the message followed the drive. It has never caused me issues or been attached to any other computer.

Someone in another forum suggested plugging it into a Windows 7 machine momentarily, and seeing if that fixes it?!

I have ~7TB of DATA on the NAS, and I would hate to lose it.

Any thoughts on what I can do? I have NO redundancy... so replacing the drive is not an option.

Many thanks in advance...

 

[Chris Moore]

Sorry, are you saying that this is a stripe set? Not mirror or RAIDz ?
You might try taking it back to the original computer, but if a drive becomes corrupt when you have no redundancy, then you loose the pool. That's why we always suggest RAIDz2 as a minimum, to protect the data.

You might want to look at the hardware recommendations found in the forum.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[themacmeister]

Yes that is what I am saying... I thought WD RED drives were reliable, and I though FreeNAS and ZFS was reliable... when I made the server, I only had about 2.5TB total storage in my computer. I was unemployed at the time, and did not want to lose 3TB or more of storage space for redundancy (as I couldn't afford a 3TB drive replacement anyways). My eyes were bigger than my plate when I thought I could get by with 11TB usable space. This is not the first time I have lost >2TB data, and I guess it won't be the last with my cavalier attitude to backups :-/

I'll still try reinstalling to the original case and mobo, but I cannot see how that would help?! I'll also try fresh SATA cables.

 

[Chris Moore]

I thought WD RED drives were reliable,

No kind of hard drive is reliable. They all fail, it is only a matter of when. That is why we use arrays of them to store important information instead of relying on single drives.

I though FreeNAS and ZFS was reliable

FreeNAS becomes reliable when it is used correctly by having ZFS make a pool of drives that includes redundancy. If you had mirrors or even RAIDz1, you would be good to go.

This is not the first time I have lost >2TB data, and I guess it won't be the last with my cavalier attitude to backups :-/

Sorry.

I'll still try reinstalling to the original case and mobo, but I cannot see how that would help?! I'll also try fresh SATA cables.

Occasionally, there is a quirk with a particular controller to where you can only read a drive on the same controller where the drive was written. It is worth a try, even though it isn't supposed to be that way.
If you can get the pool to import, you can backup your data.
Once the data is safe, you should reconfigure your pool to be a RAIDz2 before you put data back on it. If you need to have about the same amount of space available, you would need to use six 3TB drives in RAIDz2.

You should probably do some reading about how ZFS works:

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

 

[Stux]

It’s possible the data is still there and only the partition table is corrupt.

Is it possible to do a zpool status, to at least confirm no redundancy?

 

[Chris Moore]

Someone in another forum suggested plugging it into a Windows 7 machine momentarily, and seeing if that fixes it?!

I wouldn't try that. it could blow any chance of getting your data back.