Duo V1 crashed #23954328

It may have been a disk 1 once as I thought all the raid array disks were interchangeable so I swapped them round every six months or so.
Linux raid recovery does say it can see files but I need to pay to get them back.
Sorry my poor use of the word backup, I didn't mean the Duo backup facility.

A thought, what would happen if I put one of the old drives in with the new one as disk 1?
At this stage I don't think I have anything to lose.

So any idea how much it would cost to recover the data professionally?
Or should I just pay diskinternals and see what that recovers?

Sorry I am desperate.

AdrianReady wrote:
It may have been a disk 1 once as I thought all the raid array disks were interchangeable so I swapped them round every six months or so. Linux raid recovery does say it can see files but I need to pay to get them back.

Linux Reader is free, you should not be asked to pay if you are using that. Are you sure you downloaded the correct utility? And are you sure you are seeing your data files, and not the OS files?

AdrianReady wrote:
Sorry my poor use of the word backup, I didn't mean the Duo backup facility.

I didn't think you did. But swapping internal drives to make a backup is not a good method.

AdrianReady wrote:
A thought, what would happen if I put one of the old drives in with the new one as disk 1?

Nothing good. It either fails to boot or destroys your data.

AdrianReady wrote:
So any idea how much it would cost to recover the data professionally? Or should I just pay diskinternals and see what that recovers?

If you are prepared to pay, start by asking Netgear for a quote.

StephenB wrote:

AdrianReady wrote: It may have been a disk 1 once as I thought all the raid array disks were interchangeable so I swapped them round every six months or so. Linux raid recovery does say it can see files but I need to pay to get them back. Linux Reader is free, you should not be asked to pay if you are using that. Are you sure you downloaded the correct utility? And are you sure you are seeing your data files, and not the OS files?

For the disk essentials it was the actually recovery of the files they were asking me to pay for, using the Raid Recovery tool.
I'll go and check Linux Reader.... no it won't read the disk and the properties says it is a Disk 2.

StephenB wrote:
AdrianReady wrote: Sorry my poor use of the word backup, I didn't mean the Duo backup facility. I didn't think you did. But swapping internal drives to make a backup is not a good method.

StephenB wrote:
AdrianReady wrote: A thought, what would happen if I put one of the old drives in with the new one as disk 1? Nothing good. It either fails to boot or destroys your data.

Okay, thanks. I thought Raid technology was supposed to copy things across seemlessly and automatically.

StephenB wrote:
AdrianReady wrote: So any idea how much it would cost to recover the data professionally? Or should I just pay diskinternals and see what that recovers? If you are prepared to pay, start by asking Netgear for a quote.

Looks like I will need to go down that route then.
Whatever happens I'm not going to get anything working or recovered tonight.

I haven't heard anything one way or another about diskinternal's paid tool in this forum. If Netgear's price is very high, then you could risk paying for diskinternal's tool first. It should be non-destructive.

AdrianReady wrote:
I thought Raid technology was supposed to copy things across seemlessly and automatically.

Well, you have one disk with a corrupt OS partition, and a second that is either (1) blank or (2) already formatted for the NAS

Scenario (1) - new disk is blank
case 1a - The NAS could potentially decide that it was a new install, since one drive was unformatted and the other not bootable. In that case, the factory install wipes the old drive.
case 1b - The NAS sees the formatted drive, tries to boot and fails - leaving you where you are now.

Scenario (2) - new disk is formatted for the NAS already
case 2a - the NAS treats the old disk as a newly inserted drive, and syncs the old disk to the empty new one. This wipes your data
case 2b - the NAS sees the old disk as formatted, and refuses to sync - again leaving you where you are now.

The outcome you are wanting is that the NAS would reinstall the OS on the old disk (new->old), but sync the data volume in the opposite direction (old->new). That just won't happen.

An OS reinstall might possibly work, but given your strong need to get the data back with minimum risk, I'd start with Netgear support.

Thanks for that analysis of my situation Stephen, and especially your 'That just won't happen.' comment.
That has brought me down to earth and out of panic try anything mode.

So, I have ordered a new 312 so when that is delivered I will ask Netgear Support how to copy the data from an old disk to the new system.
And yes it is a very strong need, thank you.
I will start with Netgear Support, just hope it is as good in the UK.

Then when it's all back I will try and find a better backup system as clearly raid technology does not do what I thought it would.
Thanks a million again.

Just to let you know I have raised a case with Netgear Support and I don't care how much it costs as I desperately want my photos back.
Adrian.

Hi all,

Just thought I would post the results of what has happened on this case.

I raised a support call and was put in touch with Maarten in Ireland.
After putting the Duo in Tech Support Mode he verified that the two disks in the Duo were no longer responding and most likely physically damaged. I can only guess how this happened.
Anyway, fortunately I had a third drive stored offsite and that checked out okay.
After cloning that to a new drive, just in case, Maarten advised me to put the third drive back in the bay where it was taken from, which was bay 2, and start up the Duo normally, and voila it booted up fine.

Fortunately this third disk was only 3 months old and as I only use the Duo for archiving it still contained everything I needed. Phew was I relieved.
I have now copied everything to 3 other backup drives and upgraded the drives on the Duo to 2TB ones and put the info back on. So I have all my precious data on 6 drives now, 2 drives in the Duo, 3 other seagate windows drives and the desktop PC. Now looking for cheap cloud storage.

So the moral of this story is that in my case, because I do not store day to day work on the Duo, the third offsite drive completely saved me.

I give my heart felt thanks to mdgm and StephenB for helping my stress levels big time at the start of this saga.
Thanks guys.

Best Regards,
Adrian

P.S. the total cost of this has been about £650 but that does include 4 x 2TB drives, 1 x 1TB drive and a USB drive caddy as well as the cost of the support call to Netgear. They weren't cheap but they talked me through everything calmly and constructively and I did feel the support was there, including the offer of sending the disks to them for recovery.