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I was getting messages about an impending disk failure lately, so I decided to swap the offending disk and also go for a higher disk capacity (I had 4 TB, the new disk is 6 TB). I intended to do a resync with one new disk first, then add a second 6 TB disk to resync that and have a higher capacity nas after that.
That's when things went wrong. The system refused to reboot with just the remaining, original disc. When I then reinstalled the 6TB disc, both discs were formatted and I was left with no data at all. Bummer...
However, I still have the "bad" original disc in its original condition. It hasn't fataly failed me yet, so my question is: can I still use this intact disc to restore the RAID? What would happen if I install it into slot 1 of the nas? Will it be recognised? Or will it be formatted?
It's generally a good idea to CLONE a HDD before you start screwing with it tryijng to get your data back if at all possible.
On the other hand doing a bit by bit backup on a failing HDD could just cause it to fail sooner. Using SpinRite on a Clone I don't see it fixing anything. Then again depending on the size of the HDD, it could take quite some time to do it's thing. So we're back to the Clone and then putting that aside, running something like SpinRite on the Orignal HDD, allowing it to do it's thing and fix the issues with the Data, and once that's done get everything copied off of it as it's a HDD going bad. You don't want to fix your Data and then keep using that HDD.
Always better just to have a Backup to begin with and not have to go through all this other garbage. That's why I and others keep saying BACKUP. A NAS is not a BACKUP. Not unless you're backing up to another NAS like I am using rsync. I know it can be such a hassle. It costs money. A large percentage of people just don't bother. Then the HDD starts failing and they start complaining. You sure as hell don't want to get your HDD Data recovered from one of them HDD repair services as that's quite costly.
If you want ot at least make sure your Documents, and pictures and a few things like that are backed up and off site, then using something like Carbonite, where it's cheap, and automatic enough where you don't have to worry may be all you need. If you have to backup 13TB's of Data like I do, the Cloud is not pratical at all. Besides being very costly, I have a 1TB CAP from Comcast. Though I guess I could pay another $50 a month for Unlimited which I had before, at some point Comcast would cut me off anyway and Upload speed is a fraction of Download speed anyway. So it's using External HDD's plugged into the USB port to backup. Which is a hassle!!! Or another NAS and using rsync so it's automatic. That's another NAS and more HDD's, etc. I'm doing a combo of both.
Figure out what backup solution works best for you with the amount of Data you have. Then you don't have to resort to Cloning or SpinRite or any other more drastic measures.
You could also use a Proram called Spinrite from GRC. Run it on your Windows Computer and Plug the drive in. It doesn't matter what format the HDD is as it does it thing deeper. It can generally fix a drive going bad, at least good enough that you can get your data copied off of it. https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
Larger the HDD, the longer it'll take to do it's thing.
Before doing anything else, making an image or clone of the drive is a good idea. You have the good 4TB for a clone and the 6TB for an image. Clonezilla is a good tool for this. It doesn't care about the OS on the drive, it just does a sector-by-sector clone. If you want to retain the 4TB in it's current state (in the event nothing else works and you need to try and recover data in spite of the formatting), you could clone the 4TB to the 6, but I have no idea how the NAS will treat that clone.
It's generally a good idea to CLONE a HDD before you start screwing with it tryijng to get your data back if at all possible.
On the other hand doing a bit by bit backup on a failing HDD could just cause it to fail sooner. Using SpinRite on a Clone I don't see it fixing anything. Then again depending on the size of the HDD, it could take quite some time to do it's thing. So we're back to the Clone and then putting that aside, running something like SpinRite on the Orignal HDD, allowing it to do it's thing and fix the issues with the Data, and once that's done get everything copied off of it as it's a HDD going bad. You don't want to fix your Data and then keep using that HDD.
Always better just to have a Backup to begin with and not have to go through all this other garbage. That's why I and others keep saying BACKUP. A NAS is not a BACKUP. Not unless you're backing up to another NAS like I am using rsync. I know it can be such a hassle. It costs money. A large percentage of people just don't bother. Then the HDD starts failing and they start complaining. You sure as hell don't want to get your HDD Data recovered from one of them HDD repair services as that's quite costly.
If you want ot at least make sure your Documents, and pictures and a few things like that are backed up and off site, then using something like Carbonite, where it's cheap, and automatic enough where you don't have to worry may be all you need. If you have to backup 13TB's of Data like I do, the Cloud is not pratical at all. Besides being very costly, I have a 1TB CAP from Comcast. Though I guess I could pay another $50 a month for Unlimited which I had before, at some point Comcast would cut me off anyway and Upload speed is a fraction of Download speed anyway. So it's using External HDD's plugged into the USB port to backup. Which is a hassle!!! Or another NAS and using rsync so it's automatic. That's another NAS and more HDD's, etc. I'm doing a combo of both.
Figure out what backup solution works best for you with the amount of Data you have. Then you don't have to resort to Cloning or SpinRite or any other more drastic measures.
However, I still have the "bad" original disc in its original condition. It hasn't fataly failed me yet, so my question is: can I still use this intact disc to restore the RAID? What would happen if I install it into slot 1 of the nas? Will it be recognised? Or will it be formatted?
As I posted earlier, you could
power down the NAS
install the old disk in slot 1 (leaving the other slot empty).
power up
That shouldboot, and give you access to the old file system - letting you back up critical data.
"Should" is a keyword - this depends on how much the disk degraded during the resync. Cloning it might do more damage though, so I'm not keen on doing that at this point. Similarly, resyncing also will read (or write) every sector on the disk, so I don't recommend attempting that. It's already failed once.
As @JBDragon1 says, backup is far better than depending on recovery (and IMO is cheaper in the long run). But that's a lesson for the future, right now the main thing is to try and get data back.
That's great that you were able to get the most important stuff you needed from it. You lucked out. I've losts some pictures in the past I wish I still had. Which is why I'm all for backing up. backing up Multi-places. Pictures for example you can get back-up to another of places on the cloud for FREE, Google being one of them. These days when I take a picture on my iPhone, they're getting backed up to a few different places. I'll never lose a picture ever again. I'm learning from my own past mistakes.
