Ultra 6 - Disk 1 Dead, Disk 2 Dead? (#22070141) (Solved)

Have I lost all my data?

Disk 1 WDC WD20EFRX-68AX9N0 1863 GB , 35 C / 95 F , Write-cache ON Spare
Disk 2 Seagate ST32000542AS 1863 GB , 37 C / 98 F Dead
Disk 3 Hitachi HDS723020BLA642 1863 GB , 38 C / 100 F , Write-cache ON OK
Disk 4 Hitachi HDS723020BLA642 1863 GB , 38 C / 100 F , Write-cache ON OK
Disk 5 Hitachi HDS723020BLA642 1863 GB , 40 C / 104 F , Write-cache ON OK
Disk 6 Hitachi HDS723020BLA642 1863 GB , 38 C / 100 F , Write-cache ON OK

Configuration: RAID Level X-RAID2, 6 disks
Status: Dead. This volume is no longer available.

Contact support (see Online Submission link in my sig) and see what they suggest.

You might need to try cloning one or more disks.

So you don't have a backup?

Thx, mdgm. I opened a ticket. We'll see what happens. I wish I would have known that the U6 has a dual disk failure option. I didn't see that when I ran setup.

Backup is woefully out of date. Been a ReadyNAS user for years. I got too comfortable.

Lesson learned.

One more re: cloning. The disks that are bad or the "good" disks? Dumb question but I'm not sure. Or cloning as a backup strategy once this is solved? I'm slightly concerned about powering on since the last time I did that resync restarted. Not sure that's an issue at this point other than the 8 or so hours it takes.

Normally you would clone the failing disks onto good ones, and insert the clones into the NAS with the unit powered down. This can result in some data corruption, but it sometimes is the best strategy. Probably best to wait for support before you do anything more though.

Cloning isn't really a good strategy for backup.

Thanks, Stephen. Very helpful. I'll wait to see what Netgear suggests.

Is there a reco'd cloning software?

Mook wrote:
Is there a reco'd cloning software?

ddrescue,

Since this is a linux tool, you need a linux boot disk ("live cd").

Excellent support from Netgear. I cannot praise them enough. I got a call from Level 2 support then after they Telnetted into my NAS I got a call and email from Level 3 support with an action plan.

Here it is:

1. Please hot-add a new brand disk to bay 1 to re-sync it, during the disk1 re-syncing, please don’t turn off the NAS;

2. Because the disk 2 has some ATA error, so maybe the system will be hang during the disk 1 re-syncing;

If the system is hang, please turn off the NAS,

then you need clone disk 2,

then reboot the NAS with new disk 2, disk 3, 4, 5 and disk 6

then re-hot-add a disk to bay 1 to re-sync it



3. If the NAS is not hang when/after the disk 1 re-synced , then remove disk 2 and hot-add a new brand disk to bay 2 to re-sync.



If you have any questions, please feel free to send Email to me, thanks again for your help.

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Seems disk 2 being "dead" was not the case. Some ATA errors but not dead. It's online and active now since Level 3 support did a few "things". I still may have to clone disk 2 but that's minor compared to what I thought I faced.

I will update this thread after I perform the steps mentioned. Thanks to those here who made suggestions.

Dave-

Well disk 2 is failing, if not dead.

Personally I prefer X-RAID2 dual-redundancy as that protects against two disk failures. Though to switch to that you would need to backup all data, do a factory reset and then restore data from backup.

mdgm, I intend to go to dual redundancy after I see this issue through.

I have a new issue that's likely Linux related.

Here's what Netgear asked me to do after my resync failed:

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Use a Knoppix 6.2 Live CD for this guide. Can be found at http://www.knoppix.net

Using dd_rescue command allows you to copy data from one drive to another block for block. This is especially useful for recovering a failed drive. Often when a drive fails, the drive is still accessible, it has just surpassed the S.M.A.R.T. error threshold. dd_rescue allows you to ignore the bad sectors and continue cloning the bad drive to a new healthy drive.

1) Connect your old drive ["bad" disk2] and new drive to your PC.
2) Boot up using your Linux live CD.
3) Launch a terminal window.
4) Run fdisk -l to make sure the system sees both of the hard drives.
5) Run hdparm -i /dev/sdx on both of the drives to find which drive is your source drive and which drive is your destination drive.
6) Once you know which drive is which you can start the clone process.

dd_rescue /dev/sdx(source disk) /dev/sdx(destination drive)

7) You will see the process start, just keep an eye on it, it might take a few hours for the clone job to finish, depending on the size of the drive.

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When I do Step 4: fdisk -l I get this message:

WARNING! GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on ''/DEV/SDB''! Util FDISK doesn''t support GPT. Use GNU Parted.

I have no idea what that means. I searched around a bit but trying to learn Linux and the lingo is beyond me at this point. Hell, I was happy enough to be able to boot into Linux and see both my source and target drives. :D

Can anyone give me a suggestion or point me to a basic Linux forum?

Dave-