how to recover databases and settings from a non booting install

[onemoar]

as per title I haven't messed with FreeNAS in a few years but a friend contacted me saying is FreeNAS install died after a attempted update

he tried a inplace reinstall but something has gone horribly wrong with grub (I won't be onsite until monday)

he didn't make any config backups ... yea I know so what I need to know is

what do i need to have to mount the old stick as is pull the settings and databases and import them onto a clean install? and what directories/files do I need to copy and re permission to make it work

 

[Ericloewe]

Plug in the old boot device after the server is up (DO NOT attempt to boot with the old device attached, things will most likely go very wrong). Import the pool with a new name and navigate to wherever the config file is (search the forums) - check with zpool status to confirm that it is intact.

If that doesn't work, go fishing for copies in the .system dataset (search the forum for specifics).

 

[onemoar]

so i can just import the old storage pool and set it up and he should be good to go
don't mind losing the other config the data is what he wants

I should mention I have reason to believe he was running 9.2 but I can't be sure because of the botched update attempt

 

[danb35]

don't mind losing the other config the data is what he wants

That's why FreeNAS is designed the way it is--failure of the boot device won't harm the data.

 

[onemoar]

Bear with me bit out of my depth I haven't had to use FreeNAS since like 0.7.

 

[gpsguy]

FreeNAS 0.7 became NAS4free. iXsystems bought the name and has been developing their FreeNAS product since the 8.0 days. It's currently on 11.0 and soon to be 11.1.

 

[onemoar]

anyway to determine what the prior installation was
old grub entries a config somewhere ect ?

 

[Chris Moore]

As long as they have a valid zpool you should be able to import it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[onemoar]

so how the hell do I mount this thing on anouther machine to pull data
I tried via freenas but I have no idea what I am doing and the gui doesn't list the old stick as a available disk

 

[onemoar]

I got it windows ftw: after hours of trying to make bsd behave or wrap my head around the command line
I used http://www.ufsexplorer.com/download_pro.php
extract the config and password seed re-tar'd it and uploaded it to a test machine restore was successful now to try it on a live system in a few hours