How to recover drive location information data after installing update

[andrewds]

Hello,

Last week I was prompted to download and install an update to StableBit Scanner (and Drivepool, and CloudDrive), so I did. It reset my scan history so all volumes were unscanned. Annoying, but not a big deal, and as I see it is a long standing bug. However, it also reset my disk location information. This is more important, since I was using that field to keep track of the location of the physical disks. I have dug through all of the folders and files in Program Files, Program Files (x86), and ProgramData to try to reconstruct the disk location information by matching it to the serial numbers. However, having looked through dozens (or maybe hundreds) of log files and json configs, I can't find it anywhere.

Where can I find this information?

I do have backups going back a few weeks, so worst case I guess I can dig into those. But, I would prefer not to.

Thanks for any help.

[Shane]

It looks like disk location information (e.g. case and bay) is stored in

C:\ProgramData\StableBit Scanner\Service\Store\Json\Disk_diskidentifierstring.json

if that helps any?

[andrewds]

Thanka @Shane, but alas I checked every file in there and didn't find anything for these disks. @Christopher (Drashna)any other advice possibly? Should I just open a support ticket?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Can confirm that those should be the correct files. 

There should be two groups, and the "Item" has the location bay and case information.  This should match what is in StableBit Scanner.  But not every entry will have this information.   

  "Item": {
    "$type": "ScannerServiceLib.Settings.Disk, Scanner.ServiceLib",
    "Version": 9,
    "DeviceBlockVersion": 2,
    "TemperatureOverrideValue": null,
    "ChangeId": "----",
    "SmartWarningIgnores": null,
    "NameAlias": null,
    "NoSmart": false,
    "NoDirectIo": false,
    "NeverAutoScanSurface": false,
    "RecheckInterval": null,
    "NeverAutoScanFileSystem": false,
    "TemperatureOverrideC": null,
    "QueryPowerModeWithDirectIo": false,
    "LocationCase": "Column 2",
    "LocationBay": "Bay 1"

 

[andrewds]

Yeah, the information for those disks vanished during a software update. There aren't even any older files to recover from.

[Shane]

Can you try stopping the service, taking a backup of the current folder, then restoring an earlier version of the Disk*.json files and starting the service again?

[andrewds]

I don't have an earlier version of the files unfortunately, or I would have just pulled the info I need from them. The ProgramData folder is only included in the system image and only two of those are retained. Two backups had run since the version update so the info is gone. Oh well, I'll just have to shut the thing down and re-trace the serials.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

I'm sorry to hear that. 

Though, does "previous versions" work here?  It may be set up by default, and may have instances of the files.  It's a long shot, but figured it was worth mentioning, at least.

That said, StableBit Cloud should sync this information, as well.  I know it dosen't help now, but for the future, it may. 

[andrewds]

On 6/20/2023 at 5:57 PM, Christopher (Drashna) said:

I'm sorry to hear that. 

Though, does "previous versions" work here?  It may be set up by default, and may have instances of the files.  It's a long shot, but figured it was worth mentioning, at least.

That said, StableBit Cloud should sync this information, as well.  I know it dosen't help now, but for the future, it may. 

Thanks @Christopher (Drashna). I don't think that inconsideration of my preferred security posture and the limited use case for this software that the cloud solution is a good fit for me. Ideally the software would have preserved the information about past scans and existing disks during the upgrade process. But, I have added the pertinent files to nightly delta backups to mitigate future risk.

I did also manage to recover enough information through another tool I use and, aligning it with the information still present in Scanner I reconstructed everything without having to shut it all down.

Bugs happen, it's not a huge deal. Thank you for your help.

[andrewds]

@Shane @Christopher (Drashna) So today we had some bad weather come through and the server experienced a power loss. All of the drive location information is once again gone. I didn't have to perform a recovery on the OS, other software is still current, no restore point rollback or anything. Any idea what could be preventing this information from persisting?

Some of the recent scan data is gone as well.

Thanks.

[VapechiK]

hello.  in Scanner go to settings with the wrench icon > advanced settings and troubleshooting and on the first tab is where to bu/restore its settings.  you may have to enable the avanced settings from the 'general' tab under 'Scanner settings...' first.  it will create a zip file containing many json files and want to put it in 'documents' by default so just back it up elsewhere.  after renaming drives in Scanner i stop the StableBit Scanner service, twiddle my thumbs for a sec or three, restart the service and GUI and and the custom names and locations are all saved (for me anyway).  only then do i actually create the Scanner backup zip file.  i haven't had to actually restore Scanner using this zip file yet but it seems like it will work (knock on wood).  and i don't see how recent scan history would be saved using this method.  saved from when the zip file was created maybe but anything truly recent is likely gone.

it's probably a good idea to create a spreadsheet or text file etc. with your custom info ALONG WITH the serial number for each of your drives so if it happens again you can easily copy/paste directly into Scanner.  i set up my C:\_Mount folder with SNs as well so i always know which drive is which should i need to access them directly.

i have 2 UPSs as well.  1 for the computer, network equipment, and the RAID enclosure where qBittorent lives.  the other runs my remaining USB enclosures where my BU drives and Drivepool live.  even that is not fool-proof; if no one's home when the power dies, the one with all the enclosures will just run till the battery dies, as it's not controlled by any software like the one with the computer and modem etc, which is set to shut down Windows automatically/gracefully after 3 minutes.  at least it will be disconnected from Windows before the battery dies and the settings will have a greater chance of being saved.  if you have a UPS and it failed during your recent storm, all i can say is WOW bad luck.

one of these or something similar is great for power outages:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PUQILCS/?coliid=I1XKMGSRN3M77P&colid=2TBI57ZR3HAW7&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it

saved my stuff once already.  keep it plugged in an outlet near where you sleep and it will wake you up.

hope this helps  and perhaps others may benefit from some of this info as well.

cheers

[andrewds]

Thanks @VapechiK for the info. I actually was able to recover the information from records I have. However, that doesn't recover the most recent scan information which also reset. Something has happened that is preventing that information from persisting for some reason. I'd like to get to the bottom of that.

As to UPS, I am on all (relatively affordable) consumer hardware so I'm not really worried about equipment failures due to power outage. I've got everything plugged into surge strips and worst case if a component fails I'll just replace it. Too many stories over the years of home UPSes catching fire. To me they're an unacceptable home fire risk.  However, that power outage alarm you shared is pretty neat. Never seen one of those.

We definitely use large enterprise grade UPS and generators in our datacenters at work though  

[andrewds]

@Shane@Christopher (Drashna)can I bug you for any thoughts here?

Is it worth completely removing and reinstalling scanner? Seems like maybe some permissions got confused somewhere? Only reason I can think of for things suddenly not persisting.

[Shane]

I have no idea whether it will fix whatever the problem is, but if you try it then I'd suggest checking that the config store folder is actually removed when the program is uninstalled before you reinstall?