A colleague reset the admin password of the ReadyNAS 104 (using the reset button on the back) yesterday.
Today I can't access the main folder of the ReadyNAS. From what I have read this far it looks like the folder that is gone must have been the user/admin's folder.
Is there a way to get this folder back? Nothing has been written on the NAS ever since. Also users reported being able to access the folder even after the password reset, but then it disappeared.
There are unfortunately no usable snapshots to recover it. Thanks in advance.
Model: RN10400|ReadyNAS 100 Series 4-Bay (Diskless)
A colleague reset the admin password of the ReadyNAS 104 (using the reset button on the back) yesterday.
Do you mean the colleague did an OS-reinstall? Or did they do a factory reset? There is no boot menu function dedicated to "reset the admin password". The various options are on pages 28-29 here: http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/READYNAS-100/ReadyNAS_%20OS6_Desktop_HM_EN.pdf It would be helpful to review those options with the colleague and establish exactly what was done.
Today I can't access the main folder of the ReadyNAS. From what I have read this far it looks like the folder that is gone must have been the user/admin's folder.
If so, that folder would be called "admin". Is that what this main folder was called? If not, can you provide the actual name? Are you seeing it in the admin web ui share list?
If it was /home/admin, then all the users would be accessing the NAS using the admin account credentials. If the admin password was changed to something else, then that access would fail, and the users would be receiving a prompt asking for the new password. Did that happen?
FWIW, usually a shared folder is a public share, not a private home folder.
You should immediately reboot it in read-only mode to make sure the system doesn't write anything to the volume (including snapshots, etc). The boot menu documentation I posted earlier will show you how to do that.
I don't think we have enough facts here to understand what actually happened. The theory that fits the facts the best is that your colleague did a factory reset, which does a fresh install onto the hard drives - reformatting the disks in the process. That does destroy the file system. Users would see the default list of folders when they access with SMB, but they wouldn't see shares that you created, and there would be no data on the NAS. Unfortunately the chances for full recovering data after a factory reset are slim.
He used the Netgear's Password Recovery Tool to reset the admin password. The process where you enable password reset and you have to press the reset button on the ReadyNAS within 5 minutes to reset the admin password to factory defaults, which according to Netgear does not cause data loss.
There are no snapshots and no backup available. Hence my post.
The folder was indeed a /home/hotgates(admin in essence) share. That's what I was expecting, a simple prompt for credentials. What I got instead was the whole share disappearing.
I can see all the Shares that were present before the reset, bar one. During the initial setup the admin's username was changed to "hotgates"*, there was also a Share created with that name. So people who wanted to access said Share had to use "hotgates"* as the username and so did the admin if he wanted to access the webUI.
The ReadyNas runs on the latest firmware 6.9.3.
* hotgates is used as a refference name for the missing folder and is not the actual folder's name.
Thanks, that is helpful. Though it does seem odd that you'd have lost/forgotten the admin password when it is shared by several people. The normal procedure would have been to simply change it via the web ui.
First check that the folder wasn't simply renamed to admin, by browsing in the admin web ui.
If the admin folder is empty or non-existent then unfortunately you might have run into a bug in the NAS. The ability to change the admin account name is fairly new, and they might not have tested your particular use case. If that's the case, then I recommend booting in read-only mode, in order to prevent the OS itself from writing to the data volume. Then contact paid support (my.netgear.com).
Or power down the NAS, and try ReclaiMe software.
I'd also recommend putting a backup plan in place for the ReadyNAS.
Do you believe ReclaimMe has better chances of recovering the folder than EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard?
I really don't know. I'm well backed up, so I haven't needed data recovery on my NAS.
What I do know is that several users have reported success with ReclaiMe (while a couple have reported failure). I haven't seen anything on EaseUS - the vendor site doesn't mention BTRFS support.
He used the Netgear's Password Recovery Tool to reset the admin password. The process where you enable password reset and you have to press the reset button on the ReadyNAS within 5 minutes to reset the admin password to factory defaults, which according to Netgear does not cause data loss.
"NETGEAR's Password Recovery Tool" is a page hosted on the ReadyNAS. It never instructs you to reboot the ReadyNAS and utilize the reset button to factory default the ReadyNAS or perform any method. The RedyNAS has you push the reset button in and release when it asks you to so it knows you are in physical possession of the device. The KB article you posted only references how to access the boot menu to perform an OS reinstall as an alternative step other than the password recovery tool, which does not cause data loss. I just tried the Password Recovery tool on ReadyNAS to reset my admin password and my home folder for admin did not delete. You should consider contacting support who can sometimes recover deleted data.
He used the Netgear's Password Recovery Tool to reset the admin password. The process where you enable password reset and you have to press the reset button on the ReadyNAS within 5 minutes to reset the admin password to factory defaults, which according to Netgear does not cause data loss.
"NETGEAR's Password Recovery Tool" is a page hosted on the ReadyNAS. It never instructs you to reboot the ReadyNAS and utilize the reset button to factory default the ReadyNAS or perform any method. The ReadyNAS has you push the reset button in and release when it asks you to so it knows you are in physical possession of the device. The KB article you posted only references how to access the boot menu to perform an OS reinstall as an alternative step other than the password recovery tool, which does not cause data loss. I just tried the Password Recovery tool on ReadyNAS to reset my admin password and my home folder for admin did not delete. You should consider contacting support who can sometimes recover deleted data. Also, I've never seen a case where a user was able to change the admin's username. We've never allowed that.
I scanned the disks with ReclaMe and EaseUS and I can confirm that the later still doesn't support BTRFS. ReclaMe did an awesome job, it found everything except the missing folder, it is as if that folder never existed. It didn't find not one file from that folder.
@kohdee Thanks for your answer. The fact that you did the admin reset and the fact that you can't change the admins name points to another issue entirely regarding the lost folder. I need to clarify something. The folder that disappeared had the same name as a username, that's why I assumed it belonged to said user (an admin) and I also assumed you could change the admin's name. My mistake.
I have to deliver a definite report regarding the missing folder. What caused the folder to disappear? Can anyone also suggest any other solution to recover it (other than the Netgear Support)?
Thanks again everyone for your time and all the answers.
@kohdee \The folder that disappeared had the same name as a username, that's why I assumed it belonged to said user (an admin) and I also assumed you could change the admin's name. My mistake.
Multiple users in the admin group is a fairly new feature - which of course is quite different from renaming the built in admin account.
