Relevant layout: Two pools, call them storage1 and storage2
For some time, I had a perfectly happy setup. Started as freenas, moved to true nas, then core, then scale.
I recently got around to moving the hardware to a better chassis, and this is when my problem happened.
Somewhere along the line, my boot drive broke (3.3 dead short to ground when checked on the sata connector if interested).
It also turns out that the config backup I have is from when I was still on 13.x
I installed 24.10 on a new boot drive and mounted my pools in the hope that I might have a more current config stored, but no luck. The system dataset area on storage1 only seems to have info for the ‘new’ install, and there doesn’t appear to be a copy of the old one on storage2.
I’m pretty sure I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and redo my exports, shares, etc using the old 13.x as a base, but I thought I would check with the bigger brains here before I do that and really ruin any chance I may or may not have. 
I have been there and it sucks.
Look in my signature for Multi-Report, a script that once a week (by default) emails you a copy of your TrueNAS configuration file. Needless to say, the script does considerably more than that but you might take a look at it.
Yea, I found the post for it not long ago. I plan on getting that set up once the current thing is figured out, one way or another.
If you do setup Multi-Report and have a question, please ask me via Message, email, or in the Multi-Report thread.
Looking around some more, and something caught my eye.
When I shut down the system, I didn’t export the pools as I was expecting to just move the hardware and power it on. So when I started with the blank install of scale 24.10, it complained about the storage1 pool and I had to force the mount.
There is a snapshot from before the shutdown that exists on both pools.
zfs mount shows .system/configs-xxx is on the first pool.
This infers to me that the old system dataset may still exist in this snapshot?
This leaves me with the question, how does one mount what I am guessing is the system dataset?
When I try to access it from the shell, it says .system doesn’t exist. .zfs doesn’t show up with ls -al, but I can change directory into it, and I see the current .system mounted on /var/db/system
Viable approach, or am I on the proverbial wild goose chase?
Whelp, that was a pleasant surprise.
Exported the mounted pools and pulled the drives out of paranoia
Fresh install of 25.04, imported the old 13.x config (it complained about the missing pools, of course).
Plugged in my drives, removed the old pool entries from the UI, not removing the configs, and imported my pools.
To my surprise, my share and export settings were all intact. One minor mapuser change and some network adjustments (vlans were set to a different parent interface), and everything aside from a VM from the 24.x install, appears to be working as far as pool access goes.
Now to look at a better method to maintain the config backups. 
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You can use Multi-Report to maintain a copy of the TrueNAS config files. By default an email is generated every Monday which contains the tar file you can use to restore with.
Needless to say, the script does a lot more and is highly configurable. See my link in my signature or visit the Resources section.
Cheers
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