Drive Lost after 5.3.11 update

Finished with internal drives. Looks like one is dead. I will see if I can somehow resurrect some data off it using my pc.

NAS also killed the two USB drives plugged into the rear ports. This was some upgrade.

cwiebe wrote:
Finished with internal drives. Looks like one is dead. I will see if I can somehow resurrect some data off it using my pc. NAS also killed the two USB drives plugged into the rear ports. This was some upgrade.

Not sure what you mean by "killed". I don't see how a firmware upgrade will "kill" a drive (internal or external), though it could (theoretically) corrupt the formatting somehow.

All I know is the two usb drives show as requiring a format when I plug them into my PC.

I ran SeaTools diagnostics on the 3TB internal, and seatools says the drive is fine. I put the drive back in the ReadyNas and it can't mount the volume. DiskInternals Linux Reader won't recognize the drive either.

Backups are crucial for important data with an off-site backup kept at all times. We can't stress the importance of backups enough. No important data should be trusted to a single device. Businesses may spend tens of thousands or more on servers and still see the importance of backups.

Data recovery services even if successful would likely only be partially successful at recovering data. Some data would be lost.

Stephen did mention that Linux Reader isn't suitable for recovering data from the v2.

It does sound like if you want to attempt to recover some data you will need to try data recovery services.

Is there a freeware utility that will work to try to read the drive?

I doubt it, but anyway your volume clearly is not in a good state.

Free methods for recovering data are generally for cases where the NAS chassis has failed but the array is fine, not the other way around.

But there is no utility available, and SeaTools reports the drive is fine.

As an aside, it would be great for Netgear to use a drive format that isn't proprietary. Not impressed.

Well you can read readynas drives using any linux OS, but as mdgm has pointed out, the drive is the problem.

It would be great if all readynas users kept backups.

Well the drive could be fine, but there is certainly an issue with the volume and/or the something else on it. It may/may not be possible to recover the data.

It would be great if everyone kept backups no matter which devices they use. Storing the only copy of important data on a single device, no matter what that is, is taking a risk.


We don't use a proprietary filesystem for any of our ReadyNAS devices. Using an ordinary x86 Linux machine you can recover the data from any of our ReadyNAS devices. The procedure does vary depending on what NAS, you have, what RAID level etc.

The Duo v2 uses md raid with LVM volume management and the EXT4 filesystem. All of these are free.

If you are trying to use a tool on a PC it needs to be able to work with md raid.

Do you have the logs zip file downloaded from the NAS? Can you send it to me (see the link in my sig)?

I loaded EXT2FSD and it found the drive but it is empty. The two usb drives are gone as well. Too bad really, it would have been so easy to unplug them prior to the firmware update.

I believe this adventure is near over. I am going to install the 3TB in my Windows machine, format it, and then we're done. It's just too difficult with the dearth of recovery options to stay with EXT4 or similar. Thanks for your help.