ZFS Recovery

[achuneke]

I have a Dell Poweredge server which I haven't accessed in a few years. These days I only use it for archive--mostly photos. Before I last used it, it warned me that one of the two boot USBs had failed (which I thought I would fix later........). When I fired it up today, BOTH USBs are bad, I assume, as I got a boot failure.

I don't recall if I had updated from FreeNAS to TrueNAS, but I'm not sure that matters. My plan it to create a new install USB and try to start the server again. My concern is recovering the ZFS data. Will reinstalling the latest TrueNAS put this data at risk? Once the server is running again can I recover the ZFS (pool, I think)?

To avoid this in the future, any suggestions about how I can image the boot USB? I'm good with WIndows but not Unix.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

If you install a current version of TrueNAS to some drive that is not part of your data pool, you will be able to import that pool and recover your data. No risk as long as you make sure not to overwrite any data disk.

 

[c77dk]

If you've used encryption you might be in trouble - but otherwise just follow Patricks advice and you should be fine.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

If you've used encryption you might be in trouble - but otherwise just follow Patricks advice and you should be fine.

Oops. Thanks a lot for pointing that out. I don't use GELI encryption, so that's my blind spot. Actually I wrote the guide on how to remove GELI encryption while retaining your live pool

 

[achuneke]

No encryption. Thanks!!

 

[Chris Moore]

I have a Dell Poweredge server which I haven't accessed in a few years. These days I only use it for archive--mostly photos. Before I last used it, it warned me that one of the two boot USBs had failed (which I thought I would fix later........). When I fired it up today, BOTH USBs are bad, I assume, as I got a boot failure.

I don't recall if I had updated from FreeNAS to TrueNAS, but I'm not sure that matters. My plan it to create a new install USB and try to start the server again. My concern is recovering the ZFS data. Will reinstalling the latest TrueNAS put this data at risk? Once the server is running again can I recover the ZFS (pool, I think)?

To avoid this in the future, any suggestions about how I can image the boot USB? I'm good with WIndows but not Unix.

There is a feature in TrueNAS that will allow you to backup your config. If you have a config backup, you can install a fresh version of the OS, restore the config file and be right back where you were. Boot device failure is more an inconvenience than anything if you have a config backup.

 

[achuneke]

There is a feature in TrueNAS that will allow you to backup your config. If you have a config backup, you can install a fresh version of the OS, restore the config file and be right back where you were. Boot device failure is more an inconvenience than anything if you have a config backup

 

[achuneke]

There is a feature in TrueNAS that will allow you to backup your config. If you have a config backup, you can install a fresh version of the OS, restore the config file and be right back where you were. Boot device failure is more an inconvenience than anything if you have a config backup

I will install a small ssd soon. Until then, I know of a Windows utility that creates a bit-by-bit copy of any flash drive. I'll use that as a backup. I was able to reimport my pool so I think all is good. Just need to reconfigure everything. BTWA couple of windows questions for anyone:
1) What format is used for the boot flash USB and does anyone know of a way to examine that in Windows.
2) Can anyone recommend an easy to use Windows backup software I can run on TrueNAS. Doesn't have to be free. I have several Windows machines and would like this to be an automatic process.

Thanks
Al