4-disk RAID 6 drive fail now kernel panic

I have a 4 disk RAID 6 and one of the disks failed. I shut the system down to wait for a 4TB disc to arrive to copy all the data off. now when I boot it runs for about 20-30 seconds, the discs crunch and then i get a kernel panic. Is there a way to boot into a safe mode so that the discs do not mount automatically? This way I can mount read only or troubleshoot the discs? I would really like to be able to copy all this data and not lose it. any help is greatly appreciated.

Well, ultimately, it was the OS disk went corrupt and I had to replace it and was able to get most of my data off the RAID-6. Going forward I am using RAID-10 and will not longer use RAID-6 as it is not supported really.

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Obviously I’m relieved and pleased you were able to save most of your data, however I will say the word ‘backup’ :slight_smile: I get the feel from your post that you don’t have one?

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@GeoffA Thanks for the interest! As I am sure you have heard before, what starts as a project gets used for production and things get forgotten or prioritized into the ether. I know backups are a good thing and I always had the intention of adding a backup/archive drive but it always took back seat. I now have a 4TB drive running as the backup. Also, back when I first set this up 4-5 years ago now, I was not as well versed in linux and Rockstor did not have as many tools to use for this situation. Knowing one should do something and actually doing it… :slight_smile: let this be a lesson to folks if they ever see this post. Just be smart and learn from my mistake. Go RAID-10 and have an extra drive or RAID set for backing up your data. I had thought about just setting up a Pi with an attached USB as another rockstor and then link them for backups, but that is for another day and “project”

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@mercbot7 I know exactly where you are coming from, having been there myself in the past.
The Pi and USB drive idea is a great low power backup solution which I’ve used myself. In fact no need to put a full Rocky install on there, mine was a bare Raspbian OS - all very simple and easy CLI setup and then left alone, with rsync doing the regular automated backup in crontab, which is how my backups now work - but to internal drives and external NAS devices. The irony is that I have more HDD space dedicated to backups than I do in my main ‘Live’ pool.

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