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Forum Discussion
snewtonit
Sep 15, 2021Aspirant
Replaced Drive Remove Inactive Volumes to use the Disk Disk#3
We have a RR2304 - ReadyNAS 2304 1U 4-Bay unit. It's running a 4 disk RAID 5 array with X-RAID. Disk 3 failed (Causing the volume to become degraded) and has been replaced. 20 minutes after being rep...
- Sep 15, 2021
snewtonit wrote:
The drive was sent as a replacement by NetGear. ...
Will formatting or destroying that volume make it available?Well, it looks like they tested the drive in a NAS, and didn't zero it when they removed it. At least that is consistent with what you are seeing. If so, it was sloppy on their part.
If they in fact did that, then destroying the inactive volume (from the volume settings wheel) and then formatting the disk in the NAS would make it available (and it would be automatically added to your degraded volume if you are set to use XRAID).
But I urge you to make sure you have a backup of the degraded volume before you do this (out of an abundance of caution).
StephenB
Sep 15, 2021Guru - Experienced User
snewtonit wrote:
We have a RR2304 - ReadyNAS 2304 1U 4-Bay unit. It's running a 4 disk RAID 5 array with X-RAID. Disk 3 failed (Causing the volume to become degraded) and has been replaced. 20 minutes after being replaced an error has come up:
"Remove inactive volumes to use the disk. DIsk #3"
Did you replace the disk with an unformatted disk?
snewtonit
Sep 15, 2021Aspirant
Thank you for replying so quickly. The drive was sent as a replacement by NetGear. I dont know the state of the drives partitions before as it wasn't tested before installation.
Will formatting or destroying that volume make it available?
Will formatting or destroying that volume make it available?
- StephenBSep 15, 2021Guru - Experienced User
snewtonit wrote:
The drive was sent as a replacement by NetGear. ...
Will formatting or destroying that volume make it available?Well, it looks like they tested the drive in a NAS, and didn't zero it when they removed it. At least that is consistent with what you are seeing. If so, it was sloppy on their part.
If they in fact did that, then destroying the inactive volume (from the volume settings wheel) and then formatting the disk in the NAS would make it available (and it would be automatically added to your degraded volume if you are set to use XRAID).
But I urge you to make sure you have a backup of the degraded volume before you do this (out of an abundance of caution).
- SandsharkSep 16, 2021Sensei
Your NAS is seeing what it thinks are two "data" volumes, so it's calling one "data-0", which is the name of the MDADM RAID array on which the BTRFS volume resides. It appears one of those is really a part of your original "data" volume, and the other is from some other volume fragment on the replacement drive. But, don't go deleting any volumes via the GUI since you don't really know what's what, and that could make the problem far worse.
My recommendation is to re-boot the NAS in read-only mode without drive 3 and see if the volume now mounts as degraded. If the problkem is due to the replacement having a fragment of another "data" volume, it will. If it does, you can re-boot again into normal mode, then remove the partitions on the replacement drive with a PC either mounted internally to the PC or in a USB dock. Then, add it with power still applied. Since the drive is apparently used, you may want to test it using the vendor's test tool on a PC while you have it mounted there.
- snewtonitSep 16, 2021Aspirant
Thank you for your detailed response Sandshark . The only reason I decided to implement the response from StephenB was because I didn't have physical access to the NAS and I was 100% certain which volume it was. If i wasn't sure, this would have been the next thing to try. Appretiate your response.
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