Need help with recovering a system...

So today, my TrueNAS scale boot drive bit the bullet, throwing a "boot pool is read only error"/not showing up in the BIOS from time to time...

Now, usually that wouldn't be a big deal except that I don't have any images of that install and my ZFS pools aren't exported...

What should I do?

14 comments

You can just drop in a new boot drive and install from a usb. I do recommend setting up a boot pool mirror though. This way if one goes down, you have a spare that can be used to help recover more quickly.
- So the fact that the ZFS pools aren't exported isn't an issue?
  
  It doesn't matter, it might complain when you import but you can just override that.
  
  Yeah. As far as I understand it, exporting is more of a config thing. You can shut down your system asd boot it while missing drives (done this by accident) and boot while missing, and it'll say there's an issue with it. Shut down, pop the drives back in and you're good to go on boot.
- Yeah, if it's ONLY a separate boot drive, the spanned volumes should still be in tact.
Your data is safe. Worst case is that you need to do some reconfiguration of the system after you reinstalled it. You can import your existing data drives.
Have you got a recent copy of the configuration file?
- Nope
Export the configuration is step one. Step two is to replace the drive. You probably don't need to reinstall but having the exported config will make it easier if you do.
- I don't think that's possible if they don't have a working boot drive.
  
  Oh I misread. They would need to do a ZFS only mount from a different device and then manually replace it.

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