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Recover Destroyed Volume
Hello I had a single 8TB disk in channel 1 which provided a single volume. Yesterday I added three new disks each 3TB in size. I disabled X-RAID and created a new volume with the three new disks ...
If you are reading this post because the same situation has happened to you, fear not; the RAID1 data (BTRFS) is still on the disk intact even after you DESTROY the volume. Here is the solution that enabled me to recover all data from the deleted volume which was surprisingly simple:
Note that I used an external SATA dock to connect the disk containing the deleted volume as I wanted to use the four disk trays for a new RAID5 volume. If you only have two disks, the original disk with the deleted volume and a replacement disk for data recovery, then you do not need to use an external SATA dock and can skip steps 4-7.
- Don't panic.
- Don't expect NETGEAR technical support to provide any data recovery services or provide any information that would enable you to recover the data yourself.
- Insert replacement disk(s) and create new volume with sufficient capacity for the recovered data and make sure you name the new volume differently to the name of the deleted volume. Important: when creating a new volume with replacement disk(s) do not include the disk containing the deleted volume. This process will also create a copy of the NAS boot partition (including NAS system configuration) on replacement disk(s).
- Remove the disk containing the deleted volume from the NAS.
- Shut down the NAS.
- Insert the disk containing the deleted volume into a SATA dock (I used something like this) and connect the dock to the NAS using an eSATA cable (much quicker than a USB2 connection).
- Boot up the NAS.
- Enable SSH service.
- Connect to NAS via SSH (I used PuTTY) and login with NAS admin account.
- Elevate to root privilages using the "su" command and the admin password.
- List the contents of the root with the command "ls -al /" you should see both the new volume and the deleted volume which for this example I will call "NewVolume" and "DeletedVolume" respectively.
- Simply copy the contents of "DeletedVolume" to "NewVolume" with a command like "cp -v -p -R /DeletedVolume/* /NewVolume"
Note that file and directory names are case-sensitive. - The copy time will vary according to how much data you have. For example 7.5TB of files took approximately 9 hours.
You can estimate the transfer time using this calculator and a transfer rate of 220MBps for SATA connection. - After the data copy is complete, shut down the NAS.
- Remove the external disk connected via eSATA cable.
- Boot up the NAS.
- All of your files and directories are restored on the new volume.
- Recreate any non-default shares using NAS managment GUI.
That's it... happy days :)
- Don't panic.
Your volume was not EXT, so the information you found on that is not applicable. The NAS single drive is actually a 1-drive RAID1 that the OS ignores is degraded. Unfortunately, I believe that a DESTROY also removes the partition. So, step one is you need to find out the exact parttion layout the OS uses for your drive size and re-create it. Next, you'd have to re-create the MDADM RAID using the --assume-clean flag. Now, if the OS doesn't also do something to the BTRFS file system other than unmount it, it should "re-appear" and be mountable.
That's a lot to figure out, especially if you are new to Linux.
But before you even try, you said you bought a "support contract". "Support" doesn't include "data recovery", that's an entirely separate contract (with no guarantees). But I'm surprized standard support didn't tell you that. I think you need to talk to support again and tell them you are interested in a data recovey, and tell them again the circumstances of the loss.
And, whether you get this all straightened out or not, take this as a lesson that unless your NAS is already just a backup (all the data exists elsewhere), you need a backup for it.
Hi Sandshark,
Thank you for that information - much appreciated.
Your pointer to BTRFS led me to this recovery software https://www.reclaime.com/library/btrfs-recovery.aspx which has scanned the disk and enumerated the deleted volume's directories and files. Feeling more hopeful now.
I'll keep searching for an easier and quicker way of restoring the BTFRS from within a linux VM but at least I know I can export the content off the disk as a last resort.
This post seems applicable: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS-in-Business/OS6-Data-Recovery-How-to-Mount-BTRFS-Volumes/m-p/895559/highlight/true#M169340
Cheers,
Troy
If you are reading this post because the same situation has happened to you, fear not; the RAID1 data (BTRFS) is still on the disk intact even after you DESTROY the volume. Here is the solution that enabled me to recover all data from the deleted volume which was surprisingly simple:
Note that I used an external SATA dock to connect the disk containing the deleted volume as I wanted to use the four disk trays for a new RAID5 volume. If you only have two disks, the original disk with the deleted volume and a replacement disk for data recovery, then you do not need to use an external SATA dock and can skip steps 4-7.
- Don't panic.
- Don't expect NETGEAR technical support to provide any data recovery services or provide any information that would enable you to recover the data yourself.
- Insert replacement disk(s) and create new volume with sufficient capacity for the recovered data and make sure you name the new volume differently to the name of the deleted volume. Important: when creating a new volume with replacement disk(s) do not include the disk containing the deleted volume. This process will also create a copy of the NAS boot partition (including NAS system configuration) on replacement disk(s).
- Remove the disk containing the deleted volume from the NAS.
- Shut down the NAS.
- Insert the disk containing the deleted volume into a SATA dock (I used something like this) and connect the dock to the NAS using an eSATA cable (much quicker than a USB2 connection).
- Boot up the NAS.
- Enable SSH service.
- Connect to NAS via SSH (I used PuTTY) and login with NAS admin account.
- Elevate to root privilages using the "su" command and the admin password.
- List the contents of the root with the command "ls -al /" you should see both the new volume and the deleted volume which for this example I will call "NewVolume" and "DeletedVolume" respectively.
- Simply copy the contents of "DeletedVolume" to "NewVolume" with a command like "cp -v -p -R /DeletedVolume/* /NewVolume"
Note that file and directory names are case-sensitive. - The copy time will vary according to how much data you have. For example 7.5TB of files took approximately 9 hours.
You can estimate the transfer time using this calculator and a transfer rate of 220MBps for SATA connection. - After the data copy is complete, shut down the NAS.
- Remove the external disk connected via eSATA cable.
- Boot up the NAS.
- All of your files and directories are restored on the new volume.
- Recreate any non-default shares using NAS managment GUI.
That's it... happy days :)
tmr0 wrote:- Simply copy the contents of "DeletedVolume" to "NewVolume" with a command like "cp -v -p -R /DeletedVolume/* /NewVolume"
This step isn't correct. With OS-6 NAS, each share is a BTRFS subvolume. If you simply copy the deleted volume, you are creating ordinary folders on NewVolume, not subvolumes. That could get you into trouble sometime down the road. Snapshots certainly won't work properly (and neither would ReadyDR).
FWIW, normally we recommend that people log into the NAS as root (which avoids the need for SU).
- Simply copy the contents of "DeletedVolume" to "NewVolume" with a command like "cp -v -p -R /DeletedVolume/* /NewVolume"
- Don't panic.
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