Volume stuck on "restoring" - no apparent activity

Something happened, where Disk Utility, or the MacOS tool that Disk Utility runs, overwrite the "volume header" on the volume.

I am guessing this was a Time Machine volume?

What I see is an "EFI" volume (which is normally a hidden system volume) written on top of your volume. It shows MSDOS, and also "encrypted, case sensitive", which is how MacOS sets up Time Machine.

the rebuilding is not happening, as SoftRAID requires a healthy mounted volume to rebuild, to protect data when there is a problem with the volume.

Am I right this is Time Machine? If so, try using Disk Utility to "erase" the volume as APFS, it might be successful, I am not sure.

If there is unbacked data, you may be able to recover it with R-Studio, or Disk Drill.

Thanks for your answer, although I don't quite follow it.

Not it was not a time machine volume but a data volume. 

Initially I saw this (the OS is in French but I guess it is understandable)

 Now I am stuck on this

(seem the media management is broken ?)

@atakacs 

Did you intentially set your volume to be "Case Sensitive"? that is why I asked about Time Machine, it is the main explanation, as users never set volumes to be case sensitive.

In any case, that volume either needs to be deleted/recreated or erased as APFS. Since you are on standard, try using Disk Utility to erase it as APFS. It may work. Standard won't let you create a new volume.

Your other volume. may have gone out of sync for another reason, but it should be able to rebuild.

Make sure your next step is making sure all data is backed up. What ever happened is dangerous. and I do not like that your Data volume is out of sync, indicating a crash or other event.

Don't remember setting it intentionally - but this was about 6 years ago.

Of course backup is important. Still a bit surpriosed by this - is the whole point of RAID to be able to handle such situation ? There is apparent hardware issue.

(on an unrelated subject what is the matter with media -image- attachements  ?)

@atakacs 

We only allow jpg (for security reasons)

RAID is not "backup", it gives additional performance, and redundancy in the event of a disk failure. 
RAID cannot "protect" the contents of a volume. It protects the volume container itself.

Somehow a MacOS process oiverwrite your volume header/directory to make it appear "MS-DOS" and perhaps also case sensitive file system. 

Back in the original MacOS, partition maps on disks with mounted volumes were absolutely write protected. Nothing could be changed, without unmounting all volumes and then you could edit/delete, etc a volume.

Then "Boot Camp" came along, which was the first MacOS tool to edit partitions with live volumes. Then Disk Utility added this ability.

So it is no longer an absolute that volumes are protected by the OS. They are vulnerable to bugs, hardware glitches, etc.

That is what likely caused your issue. It was not "SoftRAID", as the SoftRAID Monitor and Driver cannot ever edit a partition map. Only the SoftRAID Application.

If you need the data, you will need Disk Drill, or R-Studio (two best in my testing) to recover the data. 

Else, delete the volume and create it again.

Note: SoftRAID standard does not allow creating volumes, so you should try disk utility "erase" and select APFS. That may work.

Your Data volume may have some volume directory damage, also, it does not seem to be rebuilding. Disk Warrior is the best tool to fix a damaged directory (it only works with HFS volumes)

Understood - there is a logical error in the AFPS volume, not a physical issue.

I have copied the whole content on another drive (no issue bar two minor files), reformatted in AFPS using the Apple tool and copied back. Seems to run ok...

Am I still enjoying RAID5 despite using the not very rich man version of the tool (ie I can not enable "protection" on the volume) ?

As for media in the forum you mean the issue is the file extension being .jpeg vs .jpg ? Seriously ?

@atakacs 

Safeguard prevents you from deleting the volume accidentally with SoftRAID. That is all it does. All other "protections", like error reporting, predictive failure, auto rebuilding are in the Standard version.

There are settings for allowable file types, we only enabled .txt and .jpg. I can investigate .jpeg.

Thank you for your follow up.

I'm afraid I can't seem to make any progress except triggering an up-sell message...

I have deleted my apparently corrupt Data volume and recreated using the Apple built in tools (note that it never completed - ie returned the UI to the user - but seems to have worked).

Here is a screenshot of SoftRAID warning me of an impending failure on one disk (but there is no actual error reported). I have physically repalced the disk but I don't seem to be allowed to add it back to the volume to recover RAID-5 protection ?

I guess I am missing something...

(media still not showing up in post... what forum software are you using ??)

@atakacs 

Save a SoftRAID tech support file and attach that here. I can see what is up, I cannot tell what I need to see with screen captures.

I am not sure what we are using, likely wordpress, but users wanted security, so while I can see attachments, we set it so no one else can see support files. I think that same setting prevents users from seeing them also.

Here we go again

softraid.sr_supt

(FWIW the experience with this forum software is nothing short of atrocious - among the many many issues for some reasons I can't seem to be able to attach the support file due to an "unknown error")

@atakacs 

We got the support file (Its best if you do not rename it)

Something very serious is wrong.

It appears to me that an HFS volume was erased as APFS by Disk Utility (to make it time machine compatible). SoftRAID and MacOS do not support this, if you want a volume to be Time Machine, it must be created as APFS.

Any chance this is what happened? It explains the "EFI" volume names.

Hmm... That RAID array is 7-8 years old and was most likely initially formatted in two HFS volumes (one "Data" and one "Time Machine"). Per you advise I tried to re-create the Data volume and used AFPS. Not a good idea ?

I am happy to fully rebuild the array but how ? 

@atakacs 

Attach a new support file, so I know what you did, then I can advise.

Here we go

(Didn't change anything since last btw).

As mentioned I am "happy" to rebuild the array from scratch (assuming it is possible with my license).