Forum Discussion

Aspirant

Aug 13, 2020

ReadyNas data loss as a result of dead drives (Ultra 4 Plus) - please help

Hi all. Not sure there's much I can do here, but here's my situation. I have a ReadyNas Ultra 4 Plus that I've been using since 2011 (and I moved all my data from a ReadyNas Duo when I upgraded)....

Sandshark

Sensei

Aug 13, 2020

If the newly failed drive is in good enough shape, you can try creating a clone of it to a new drive with Clonezilla, or similar block-by-block cloning software. Then try that with the other drives in the NAS. If the NAS still won't boot, you can try ReclaiME, which will require you have a way to connect all the drives to a PC via SATA or SATA to USB adapters/docks. You can download ReclaiMe for free and see if it looks like it will do the job before you pay the somewhat high price for a version that will do the recovery.

If the drive cannot be cloned, you can try ReclaiMe with just the other drives, but your chances of success are lower.

kiwiaussie
Aspirant
Aug 13, 2020
Thanks heaps for the advice. I can't believe this but I shut down the NAS and turned it back on a few times and now it's not saying that drive isn't dead at all. In fact it's resyncing the replacement for the first dead drive as if it never tried to do it in the first place. In the meantime I've managed to grab my photos off it. So even if it fails ultimately, I'm happy. Thanks again.
- Sandshark
  Sensei
  Aug 13, 2020
  Check the SMART status for the "undead" drive. It may have been just a fluke, but behavior like that is often a sign of a failing drive. Glad you got your pictures just in case. Now, about that backup you never got around to...
  - kiwiaussie
    Aspirant
    Aug 13, 2020
    Haha. Yep the photos are uploading to the cloud as we speak. And given the number of Seagate ST3000DM001 HDD's I've chewed through it wouldn't surprise me at all if this was one was on its last legs. Have had much better luck with the WD Red NAS drives.