ReadyNAS 102: how to recover data from RAID-1 disks?

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kblam wrote:

I've powered it down, and re-inserted the two disks, and powered it back up (I've done this before several time, actually), and RAIDar still sees the unit but indicates 'No disks detected.'

 

Sometimes I've found that actually disconnecting the system from power can help with bios device detection, so I thought it worth a try. Most modern electronics are never really off as long as they are powered.  But it looks like the system is locking up after the boot.  It could be the chassis hardware, something wrong with one of the disks that eventually crashes the SATA bus (or drivers), or something really wrong with the 6.5 upgrade.

You can also test the drives in a windows PC (perhaps with a USB adapter), with the vendor tools - seatools for seagate, and lifeguard for western digital.

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kblam wrote:

Question on the customer support: if I go all the way to a data recovery contract, if I expect that my disks are in perfectly good shape, would the data recovery services produce an image of my disks on a third disk with my file structure and file names fully intact? Or would the recovery be just a dump of all the files w/o any file structure and files named by some some arbitrary recovery sequence? I have some 20k files on these two 4-TB drives, so such a dump of a recovery would be rather useless.

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There are several scenarios here.  Tracing one path...

If the chassis has failed (possibility but not a given) then you first would get a replacement RN102 under warranty.

At that point you reinsert the original disks and power up.  Perhaps the system boots, and the original lockup still occurs.

Then you use support again to resolve the lockup problem.  Perhaps at that point all your data is intact and mounted, but if the volume were corrupted, you would need a separate data recovery contract.  

Netgear's data recovery team works remotely, and you would be able to discuss with support the odds of success and what they could provide before you execute that contract.