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Disk volume no longer active - force activation?
I come in hopes to be saved from myself and that I didn't in fact lose it all.
I've had this NAS for a few years now, and it has done me well. I started with a 3TB and over the years I've started hitting capacity issues. So, I figured it was high time to move to 6TB. Bought a 6TB, slipped it into drive bay 2, saw it sync up, let it do its thing, then saw that it only gave me a 3TB drive in the 6TB space.
Welp, that wasn't what I wanted. So, just to be safe, I pulled the 6TB, and the 3TB stays accessible, could see the drive and its contents, though due to the loss of the synced drive, it says the data is degraded. Upon swapping out for just the 6TB, I got the same statement and treatment. No worries, I thought. Since I have the 3TB with my data still intact, I can just wipe the 6TB, build its own partition, put it back in with the 3TB, and copy it all over manually.
That's when the trouble began.
After wiping the 6TB, doing the whole DESTROY thing and FORMAT to make a new partition, and putting the 3TB in on its own again, the NAS would no longer boot. I was no longer able to access the drive. Minor panic set in. I swapped back to the 6TB, and now the NAS communicates but treats itself like it's brand new. Default login/password, asks me for email and all that stuff all over again. Well that's odd, I thought. I entered what I needed to to at least get back to the interface. I now have a blank 6TB drive again and everything looks all new. Weird, but whatever. So I decide that if the 3TB drive won't boot, I can at least still look at the files and copy it over to the 6TB as intended, nothing really lost as I didn't really make any special accounts or anything.
The 3TB drive's volume is now labelled as inactive and will no longer let me access it via the web interface.
I'm really hoping that I can still retrieve the data from the 3TB drive. If I could boot the NAS from that drive, I'd copy everything over bit by bit if I had to, considering my PC only has so much space. Alternatively, if I could force the activation of the 3TB drive, I would do it in other ways. I'm even willing to build a Linux live CD and try to manually plug in my 3TB drive into my PC just to read the data. Does anyone have any insight as to how I may get my data?
Did you try booting to volume read-only mode?
On Linux you'd need mdadm for the RAID and btrfs-progs for the filesystem.
So you could try at your own risk e.g. (note if not logged in as the superuser you may need to preface commands with sudo)
To install mdadm and btrfs-progs if not already on the system:
# apt-get install mdadm btrfs-progs
To assemble the RAID
# mdadm --assemble --scan
In case it's a multi-layer data volume we should scan for BTRFS devices
# btrfs device scan
We should also check with md RAID device(s) correspond(s) to the data volume
# btrfs fi show
And try mounting it read-only
# mount -o ro -t btrfs /dev/md127 /mnt
This working would assume things are in a good state which they may not be.
If it won't mount you can check dmesg for clues# dmesg | tail
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Cyntalan wrote:
After wiping the 6TB, doing the whole DESTROY thing and FORMAT to make a new partition, and putting the 3TB in on its own again,
I don't completely follow your steps, but DESTROY applies to the RAID volume, not the disk. So the DESTROY is likely the cause of your data loss. FORMAT would apply to a specific disk.
What is a bit puzzling is why the 3 TB disk won't boot. Normally it will boot without a data volume.
Cyntalan wrote:
I've had this NAS for a few years now, and it has done me well. I started with a 3TB and over the years I've started hitting capacity issues. So, I figured it was high time to move to 6TB. Bought a 6TB, slipped it into drive bay 2, saw it sync up, let it do its thing, then saw that it only gave me a 3TB drive in the 6TB space.
XRAID provides RAID redundancy (protection against a "routine" single disk failure). In the case of a 2-bay NAS the volume size is the smaller of the two disks. The more general capacity rule is "sum the disks and subtract the largest".
What you might have done here is switch to flexraid before you started, and then added the 6 TB drive as a separate volume. Then you could have created temporary shares on the new disk, copied the data, and DESTROYed the original volume (and finally renamed the temporary shares to match the names of the original).
Once you made the mistake of inserting the 6 TB drive in XRAID mode, the only solutions were
- back up the data, do a factory default and start over with the 6 TB drive
- get a second 6 TB drive, and replace the 3 TB drive as well.
Cyntalan wrote:
The 3TB drive's volume is now labelled as inactive and will no longer let me access it via the web interface.
I'm really hoping that I can still retrieve the data from the 3TB drive. If I could boot the NAS from that drive, I'd copy everything over bit by bit if I had to, considering my PC only has so much space. Alternatively, if I could force the activation of the 3TB drive, I would do it in other ways. I'm even willing to build a Linux live CD and try to manually plug in my 3TB drive into my PC just to read the data. Does anyone have any insight as to how I may get my data?
If I'm following your steps correctly, then your best chance of getting the data back is to use Data Recovery. I suggest connecting the 3 TB drive to a Windows PC and trying ReclaiMe, and see if that sees your data. Doing the test is free, you'd only pay for the software if you actually recover it.
Another option is to use paid Netgear support (my.netgear.com). They also offer a data recovery service ( https://kb.netgear.com/69/ReadyNAS-Data-Recovery-Diagnostics-Scope-of-Service ). If the issue isn't what I think it is, they can possibly remount the data volume w/o data recovery - which would be less expensive. The fact that the NAS is showing you the inactive volume is in your favor here.
Though this might not be the easiest thing to hear right now, the only way to keep your data safe is to back it up to at least one other device.
I performed the destroy with ONLY the 6TB drive in place, which is how the 3TB drive still exists.
I talked with someone who knows far more about Linux than I and was able to get into the system with PuTTY, and I can see the partitions, but I am unable to mount them, as it reports the partition being a filesystem type 'linux_raid_member' which mount could not recognize based on what I DO know about Linux. That I could see the partition really led me to believe I could do something on my own, but frankly, I have no idea what.
I'll need to go hunting for a SATA cable, but I will give ReclaMe a try, but I have a feeling that it'll be easily possible for it based on my above observations in PuTTY, and if I can avoid the $200, I would like to try.
Since you can "see" your data another approach could be to format the 6TB to NTFS using your PC, obtain a USB caddy for that drive and attach to the ReadyNAS.
Then using Linux copy your Data folder to to the USB Drive (this will be in the folder /Media on the ReadyNAS)
For Linux noobs (like me) I can recommend a file manager called Midnight Commander, to install it using putty type:
apt-get install mc
To open Midnight Commander type mc
You will be presented with a dual screen, in the left hand screen highlight your /Data folder in the right hand screen highlight /media folder, click on it and select
USB_HDD_1 (the number 1 may be different)
Then highlight /Data on the left screen again and click Copy at the bottom of the screen and OK on the pop up
That should copy all your data to the 6TB USB Drive, this is your backup which you should disconnect (maybe by shutting down the Readynas gracefully first).You could connect it to your PC to check your data is there ok.
What you do next is up to you, factory default the ReadyNAS with only the 3TB or a NEW 6TB drive installed, setup your shares and settings, plugin the 6GB USB to the NAS and reverse the above process, MC tutorial is HERE
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