Hi, I have a ReadyNAS Ultra 2 with two WD Green 3TB drives of which the LCC problem was solved by applying the WDIDLE3 tool early on. The other day I wanted to detach the MyBook 3TB that I use for backups (Ultra2 was working fine so far) to see if the drive was still good because all my Rsync jobs were suddenly failing. The failing is most likely because of ownership issues. BUT...before detaching the MyBook I shut down the Ultra2 for a clean detach. After that the Ultra2 never wanted to boot again. Not with original drives, not with zero drives, not with 1 brand new drive. No activity on either ethernet port either. Only the blue light comes on and the fan changes between 2 speeds and both those speeds are faster than under normal operating conditions. So far the description.
Now the real question: how do I get to my data? I figured since this is a unit with an Atom CPU, the drives should simply turn up on a PC with EXT3 partitions? Without having to deal with the Sparc issues? Even when RAID1 is involved? I tried USB to SATA interface and directly to SATA on motherboard. I tried Win7 with tools that allow to read linux partitions. I tried a live Linux distro (Knoppix 6.4) and I tried the following recovery software: 1. Stellar Phoenix Linux Data recovery (which served me well with a crashed Thecus in the past) 2. Zero assumption recovery 3. Diskinternals RAID recovery (shows high file and folder count while scanning but produces garbage)
No meaningfull coherent data, at all !! I should mention also that because of the backup problems with Rsync, they are not really current anymore because I was patiently trying to learn what was wrong to remedy the problem. And now I'm stuck with 2 months old backups. So I'm REALLY eager to retrieve my data.
Disk management of Win7 shows three "healthy" partitions on each disk. One 4GB, one 512MB and one 2790GB.
Is there anything that I missed? What would the recovery software of choice be that doesn't break the bank? Anyone of the guru's please?
Since your chassis fails to boot, then likely you will get an RMA. If your disks are ok, then you should be able to plug them in, and everything should be ok.
My Ultra2 is not under warranty anymore. Before I go purchase another ultra2 for the sole sake of retrieving my files I would like to find out if my data is corrupted or not. So what about my question whether or not the partition(s) should show up with readable data with a linux distro?
Two reasons why this might not work is 1. 4k sectors 2. raid
You purchased the Ultra over 3 years ago? I find that hard to believe considering it came out less than 3 years ago. The Ultra 2 has a 3 year warranty. Easiest solution would be to migrate to another Ultra, hopefully a replacement under warranty.
The partitions on the disks should be visible in Linux. If you were running 4.2.16 or later you'd need to use tools for GPT e.g. sgdisk (I think). You could use the print option to print the partition table.
It's easy enough to use mdadm to start the RAID, run a vgscan, make the volume group available using vgchange and mount the volume.
I knew I could not escape explaining why my unit has no warranty anymore. 🙂 That's because of the same reason I don't effectively use my Duo anymore: salt in the air here where I live. Everything with forced air cooling is problematic. The pcb in the Duo shows signs of corrosion. Especially around the USB and Ethernet ports. That's why I retired it and purchased the Ultra2. But before putting the Ultra2 into use I covered the pcbs with a sprayed polyurethane clear coat for electronics. I don't think Netgear appreciates that. My unit was bought in March this year.....
You purchased the Ultra over 3 years ago? I find that hard to believe considering it came out less than 3 years ago. The Ultra 2 has a 3 year warranty. Easiest solution would be to migrate to another Ultra, hopefully a replacement under warranty.
The partitions on the disks should be visible in Linux. If you were running 4.2.16 or later you'd need to use tools for GPT e.g. sgdisk (I think). You could use the print option to print the partition table.
It's easy enough to use mdadm to start the RAID, run a vgscan, make the volume group available using vgchange and mount the volume.
Oh and the Ultra uses EXT4.
I used 4.2.19 I believe. Not the very latest but one before that. Linux (Knoppix) and Windows with the EXT add-on sees the partitions but not what's in it. I know a tiny bit about Linux but what you are refering to above is meaningless to me without some more explanation.
How do I "start" the RAID? hook both drives to a SATA port in the PC and run "mdadm"? Is that GUI or CLI?
Yes. If you're running a different OS that has those tools there might be a different package manager used to download and install tools.
The ReadyNAS does run customised Debian Linux so the best machines to use to recover data from a ReadyNAS array would probably be Debian/Ubuntu machines.
I tried with Debian. Did not work. However, with the help of a friend who is a professional programmer, we tried an application he recommended called File Scavenger. You can google it. At first it didn't work either but preliminary results were promising nevertheless. It could see the disk with correct size reporting and some data.
I contacted the publisher and they were amazingly helpful. After supplying them with some pieces of backed up disk image (the application can do this) on their request for determining what file system I have exactly, they provided me with a download link of a beta version of their software. This beta version worked and I have all my files back. And yeah, I purchased the $185 professional license and am glad I did.
It is my impression that the beta version was needed for disks larger than the 2.2TB barrier. The regular version read my 2TB disks of my older Duo (Sparc) just fine.
