Decrypt volume failed

[ShipDaddy]

Ok, here is the story.

A couple of months back I decided to build an ITX gaming box for my living room (tired of expensive games and multiplayer fees on consoles). My Freenas Server had 12GB of RAM and I only felt like I needed 8GB. I pulled 4GB of RAM out and restarted the server. There was a short on the motherboard and somehow a socket pin got bent. A few motherboard RMA's later I finally was able to boot up Freenas. However I can no longer unlock the encrypted volume on the server using the key I had been using and my passphrase. This was setup as a RAIDZ5 I believe (9TB total, striped to 6TB). Unfortunately my seagate external backup hard drive also died so I have no backup.

A few things that changed.

1. I had not taken a picture of the cables when I pulled them all to send in the motherboard so the SATA cables are likely in different SATA connections (hard drive X may no longer be in SATA1). I don't know if this impacts decryption.
2. Obviously I now only have 8GB of RAM instead of 12.
3. New Motherboard (same brand and model).
4. New Freenas version on the USB drive. I was 9.2.1.7 before, the USB is now 9.2.1.8. I had wiped the 9.2.1.7 because my motherboard was no longer detecting the drive (thought there could have been a problem with the USB, turns out it was faulty MB release firmware).

I have tried detaching the drive, rebooting, and auto importing but I get an error (tried based on other forum results). See error below and uploaded screenshot.

• The following disks failed to attach: gptid/c33e2aed-36e6-11e3-8de1-94de80becb00, gptid/c40d18aa-36e6-11e3-8de1-94de80becb00, gptid/c3a94d28-36e6-11e3-8de1-94de80becb00

And the log below.

Nov 30 17:14:18 freenas manage.py: [middleware.notifier:1362] Failed to geli detach gptid/c3a94d28-36e6-11e3-8de1-94de80becb00: geli: No such device: gptid/c3a94d28-36e6-11e3-8de1-94de80becb00.

I've been without my server for 3 months and it feels like I am going through withdrawals (probably just overwhelming frustration). Any help is appreciated.

My hardware.
CPU - Core i3 4130T
MB - Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H
RAM - GSkill Ripjaws X DDR3
HDD - 3 x 3TB WD Red drives
On board graphics

 

[dlavigne]

Post the output of zpool status in code tags.

 

[ShipDaddy]

Post the output of zpool status in code tags.

It says 'no pools available'.

I did zpool list to check and says the same thing.

 

[Ericloewe]

Not looking good. If you have backups, now is the time to prepare them.
Encrypted pools are rather prone to being lost if care is not taken.

 

[panz]

Did you try with key and recovery key? (NOT the passphrase)

 

[ShipDaddy]

Not looking good. If you have backups, now is the time to prepare them.
Encrypted pools are rather prone to being lost if care is not taken.

I'm relatively new to FreeNAS and haven't worked with many of the linux commands, but would it show any pools if I detached the volume? The volume was showing originally but would not unlock, I read on the freenas forums that people had success with detaching and auto-importing to restore their drives so I tried but it would not decrypt (see the image in my first post). I do not have a full backup to restore as my external hard drive has failed.

 

[ShipDaddy]

Did you try with key and recovery key? (NOT the passphrase)

How do I do this? I only see a place for the recovery key and the passphrase. Not sure what the key is I'm supposed to use. I have a geli.recovery.key. If there is a step by step somewhere I will give it a try.

 

[ShipDaddy]

Any other options or more details without the pass phrase? Would really like to avoid losing all of my data. Seems strange that the recovery key and pass phrase I have used for over a year would all of a sudden stop working.

Thank you

 

[cyberjock]

Any other options or more details without the pass phrase? Would really like to avoid losing all of my data. Seems strange that the recovery key and pass phrase I have used for over a year would all of a sudden stop working.

Thank you

It does seem strange. I'm betting there's something to the story you either aren't sharing or aren't aware that affects encryption.

Do you not have any backups?

 

[ShipDaddy]

It does seem strange. I'm betting there's something to the story you either aren't sharing or aren't aware that affects encryption.

Do you not have any backups?

I have had nothing but bad luck recently including my external hard drive no longer functioning that was my backup device. I'm not aware of any other changes other then the ones I stated in my first post at the top. Less RAM, different Freenas version on the USB drive, different motherboard (same model though) and having the hard drives potentially plugged into different SATA plugs on the MB. Different BIOS on the motherboard as well (updated due to issues finding USB boot drives in the earlier version).

What hardware changes would make an encryption key no longer function? I can't imagine hardware changes would impact this as if you ever changed hardware you would be SOL.

I am open to any suggestions that may fix my issue.

Thanks for all the help!

 

[cyberjock]

What hardware changes would make an encryption key no longer function?

The better question to ask is what won't affect the key. You have CLI access (and WebGUI access) and using both you can cause unrecoverable damage to an encrypted drive. The list is literally almost endless because of all the possible ways.

 

[ShipDaddy]

The better question to ask is what won't affect the key. You have CLI access (and WebGUI access) and using both you can cause unrecoverable damage to an encrypted drive. The list is literally almost endless because of all the possible ways.

Is there anything I can try to fix this or is my only option format and start over?

 

[cyberjock]

I don't have good advice to give on how to recover. There's too many variables to troubleshoot in a forum setting. One of the reasons I don't advocate for encryption except when *absolutely* necessary and then only when you have a reliable robust backup system running is because if things go bad with the encryption it generally means "kiss the data goodbye".

You might be able to call iXsystems and do a 1-time contract for 3 hours of support. It will cost you some money, but if its worth the money then its something you should definitely consider.