Oracle Solaris ZFS Administration Guide

Recovering Destroyed ZFS Storage Pools

You can use the zpool import -D command to recover a storage pool that has been destroyed. For example:

# zpool destroy tank
# zpool import -D
  pool: tank
    id: 5154272182900538157
 state: ONLINE (DESTROYED)
action: The pool can be imported using its name or numeric identifier.
config:

        tank        ONLINE
          mirror-0  ONLINE
            c1t0d0  ONLINE
            c1t1d0  ONLINE

In this zpool import output, you can identify the tank pool as the destroyed pool because of the following state information:

state: ONLINE (DESTROYED)

To recover the destroyed pool, run the zpool import -D command again with the pool to be recovered. For example:

# zpool import -D tank
# zpool status tank
  pool: tank
 state: ONLINE
 scrub: none requested
config:

        NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        tank        ONLINE
          mirror-0  ONLINE
            c1t0d0  ONLINE
            c1t1d0  ONLINE

errors: No known data errors

If one of the devices in the destroyed pool is faulted or unavailable, you might be able to recover the destroyed pool anyway by including the -f option. In this scenario, you would import the degraded pool and then attempt to fix the device failure. For example:

# zpool destroy dozer
# zpool import -D
pool: dozer
    id: 13643595538644303788
 state: DEGRADED (DESTROYED)
status: One or more devices could not be opened.  Sufficient replicas exist for
        the pool to continue functioning in a degraded state.
action: Attach the missing device and online it using 'zpool online'.
   see: http://www.sun.com/msg/ZFS-8000-2Q
config:

        NAME         STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        dozer        DEGRADED     0     0     0
          raidz2-0   DEGRADED     0     0     0
            c2t8d0   ONLINE       0     0     0
            c2t9d0   ONLINE       0     0     0
            c2t10d0  ONLINE       0     0     0
            c2t11d0  UNAVAIL      0    35     1  cannot open
            c2t12d0  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors
# zpool import -Df dozer
# zpool status -x
  pool: dozer
 state: DEGRADED
status: One or more devices could not be opened.  Sufficient replicas exist for
        the pool to continue functioning in a degraded state.
action: Attach the missing device and online it using 'zpool online'.
   see: http://www.sun.com/msg/ZFS-8000-2Q
 scrub: scrub completed after 0h0m with 0 errors on Thu Jan 21 15:38:48 2010
config:

        NAME         STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        dozer        DEGRADED     0     0     0
          raidz2-0   DEGRADED     0     0     0
            c2t8d0   ONLINE       0     0     0
            c2t9d0   ONLINE       0     0     0
            c2t10d0  ONLINE       0     0     0
            c2t11d0  UNAVAIL      0    37     0  cannot open
            c2t12d0  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors
# zpool online dozer c2t11d0
Bringing device c2t11d0 online
# zpool status -x
all pools are healthy