NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Access data on HDDs without ReadyNAS?
G'day all,
I've recently moved from Australia to the USA and in a bid to pack lightly, I brought the two HDDs from my ReadyNAS Duo with me and I left the NAS at home for my dad to use. I'm sure you can see where this is going.
My plan was/is to use these drives in a new NAS but of course, I can't put them in there because the first thing that'll happen is they'll get formatted. "No problem", I say, "I'll just plug them in with a NewerTech Universal USB adapter, copy the info onto my computer, format the drives and copy it all back."
Here is my snag. Neither OS X or Windows recognise the disk and can't read off them. I had the NAS set up in the default RAID configuration with two HDDs providing redundancy.
Is there a way to access the info on the HDDs without the original ReadyNAS hardware? I contacted Netgear support but was basically told that I might be able to access it with a linux system and told "good luck". Not as helpful as I'd hoped. Linux is one step further than my expertise runs, but I'm willing to give it a shot if it'll work. I just don't know what I need to do. I've downloaded Ubuntu and have it ready to install.
My current system is a 2009 Macbook Pro running Mavericks. I also have a Windows Vista machine I can use.
Thanks in advance.
I've recently moved from Australia to the USA and in a bid to pack lightly, I brought the two HDDs from my ReadyNAS Duo with me and I left the NAS at home for my dad to use. I'm sure you can see where this is going.
My plan was/is to use these drives in a new NAS but of course, I can't put them in there because the first thing that'll happen is they'll get formatted. "No problem", I say, "I'll just plug them in with a NewerTech Universal USB adapter, copy the info onto my computer, format the drives and copy it all back."
Here is my snag. Neither OS X or Windows recognise the disk and can't read off them. I had the NAS set up in the default RAID configuration with two HDDs providing redundancy.
Is there a way to access the info on the HDDs without the original ReadyNAS hardware? I contacted Netgear support but was basically told that I might be able to access it with a linux system and told "good luck". Not as helpful as I'd hoped. Linux is one step further than my expertise runs, but I'm willing to give it a shot if it'll work. I just don't know what I need to do. I've downloaded Ubuntu and have it ready to install.
My current system is a 2009 Macbook Pro running Mavericks. I also have a Windows Vista machine I can use.
Thanks in advance.
8 Replies
- I assume from your profile you had a duo v1 or v2?
You could try linux reader: http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/
This will only work on disk 1 if you had a duo v1. - Use this guide (not the label!) to sort out whether you have a v1 or a v2.
- Thanks for looking in on this. I don't have the unit anymore, but I plugged in the other HDD (why had I not thought of that?) and tried looking into it with UFS Explorer RAID recovery, which worked! I can see all my files and I could copy them over if I paid the license fee, but I'm not so keen on bandying up $100 for one copy/paste job, so I'm exploring other options. Obviously, it's a software issue rather than a hardware one, so there's gotta be another way.
I found this: http://ekettoz.blogspot.com/2009/06/mounting-linux-ext2ext3-partitions.html which has been helpful, (OSXFUSE + fuse-ex2) except I get the following message when I try to mount the HDD:
$ sudo fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s5 /Volumes/NASHDD
fuse-ext2: version:'0.0.7', fuse_version:'27' [main (../../fuse-ext2/fuse-ext2.c:324)]
fuse-ext2: enter [do_probe (../../fuse-ext2/do_probe.c:30)]
fuse-ext2: Error while trying to open /dev/disk2s5 (rc=2133571347) [do_probe (../../fuse-ext2/do_probe.c:34)]
fuse-ext2: Probe failed [main (../../fuse-ext2/fuse-ext2.c:340)]
And, instead of not mounting anything when I plug in the HDD it mounts the NAS OD partition but won't mount the part with my data on it. DiskUtility tells me that it's formatted as Linux_LVM.
So, I have some progress, but not as much as I'd hoped.
Thanks again! - Linux Reader should just work on disk 1 (which I think is what you are using). Though it does need windows.
This info might be helpful: http://home.bott.ca/webserver/?p=306 - Great! I'll give that a shot and let you know how I go. Thanks very much!
- Thanks very much! Linux Reader worked perfectly!
- Do note that recovering data from arrays from our newer models is a bit easier (with the newer models fuse-ext2 is not required).
Also you can easily migrate disks from a NAS to another NAS with the same CPU architecture running the same OS. Though the Duo (v1) has been End of Life for quite a while so it wouldn't be recommended to buy one of those now.
Normally we'd recommend copying the data off while the disks are still in the Duo as that is easier.
If the Duo chassis failed however we do recommend checking with us first to confirm a chassis has failed before getting an RMA (if under warranty).
On the forums here the community can also help advise as to whether it's likely there is a problem with the NAS chassis or not. - Thanks mdgm, it certainly would have been easier to have a backup on another disk before I took them out! Thankfully, I'd done a backup a few months previously so I only had a few months' stuff to retrieve, but the international move frazzled my brain a bit and I just didn't put together that I couldn't just plug the HDDs into another NAS and expect them to work. Luckily, I had a moment of clarity before I tried it!
The Duo itself was fine and served me well for the time I had it, no issues. I just left it in Australia when we moved to the USA.
NETGEAR Academy
Boost your skills with the Netgear Academy - Get trained, certified and stay ahead with the latest Netgear technology!
Join Us!
