Nas Data recovery query

n1ckb

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My Seagate NAS Pro 4 bay nas decided to stop working after the power went out one day. It now powers up but the little LCD screen just lights up and no text comes up, Seagate support advised me to reset the device and to erase the disks even though I told them I wanted to recover the data.

I have plugged the drives into a caddy on my laptop and can see data so I'm hoping the array is still working. Just wondering how I can recover my data as don't want to reset the nas Incase it blanks the disks.

Any advice greatly received.

Thanks.
Nick
 
How was the array configured? (what raid type)
Was the nas on the latest fw/os?
Do you have any spare spindles?
What what the backup status?

Just to add, adding disks from a raid array to a computer can be a bad thing, if they are still active I’d power them down.
 
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How was the array configured? (what raid type)
Was the nas on the latest fw/os?
Do you have any spare spindles?
What what the backup status?

Just to add, adding disks from a raid array to a computer can be a bad thing, if they are still active I’d power them down.
Thanks for responding

4 x 2TB in Raid 5 with spare, it was as updated as it could be as Seagate stopped updates and support in July 2022.

The drives are out of the NAS as I didnt want to keep powering on and off while trying to do the repair on the NAS but this didnt change anything.

Looks like the actually NAS is faulty so just need to try getting the data from the disks at this point, tried finding a replacement online but nothing on ebay and Novatech listed them but they cannot get stock

Thanks
Nick
 
Thanks for responding

4 x 2TB in Raid 5 with spare, it was as updated as it could be as Seagate stopped updates and support in July 2022.

The drives are out of the NAS as I didnt want to keep powering on and off while trying to do the repair on the NAS but this didnt change anything.

Looks like the actually NAS is faulty so just need to try getting the data from the disks at this point, tried finding a replacement online but nothing on ebay and Novatech listed them but they cannot get stock

Thanks
Nick
Really just a case of plugging away on eBay then unless there are reports of known failures that can be repaired.
 
Getting replacement NAS is best option but you can try relciame if desperate, it can read RAID 5 arrays in windows but there are a lot of caveats, be sure to read the user manual.
 
Thanks everyone for getting back to me, will plug away on ebay etc so fingers crossed
 
when you get it sorted your going to have to get back into the habit of reg` backups. I use a usb/sata docking station with a 8TB HD in works a treat. Good luck
 
Just wondering how I can recover my data
Any advice greatly received.
4 x 2TB in Raid 5 with spare

Do you have a 10TB drive that you could image these onto?

Most likely this will be software raid via mdadm.
If you have a PC with at least 2 SATA ports and running system-rescue (e.g. on a USB stick) then it should be straight forward to assemble the raid.

Try 'mdadm assemble raid5' in a search engine to see what is required.

ETA:
2 (not 4) SATA ports since one is a spare and you need a minimum of 2 drives.
 
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Your NAS is probably affected by the Intel Atom C2000 bug

I had a QNAP NAS which was affected by the same issue (would not boot) and I managed to effect a temporary fix by soldering a resistor to a couple of connectors on the motherboard. Search the above "bug" and you will find detailed info.

I don't run RAID, each drive in my NAS is a standalone drive and I keep backups of all drives separately. After the repair I checked and confirmed all my backups and then invested in a new NAS as I don't know how long the fix would last.

If you're lucky, you can fix the NAS and backup all your files.

Here's a YT video of a typical QNAP NAS and the fix for the issue. Googling around suggests the Seagate NAS Pro DOES suffer this particular defect..... I didn't have access to a 'scope for my fix - I just used a digital multimeter to check the pin voltages.

 
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Euugh, had a raid 5 array crash a few years ago (on windows, the start of the disks got wiped). I resorted to manually calculating the RAID parity to untangle the stripe settings and disk allocations so I could use one of the rebuild tools. Managed to get all but a few files back.
I now use RAID 10 at work and snapraid at home with multiple distinct parity drives.
RAID 5 should be nowhere near any consumer equipment. It's only reliable if always on with dedicated equipment - and small disk that take no more than a few hours for rebuild.
 
Just what you don't need, the backup device failing.
I've tried Synology and WD NAS devices and both have fallen by the wayside.
The Synology hardware seems to be robust, but the Seagate drives both failed.
When I remember, I just copy important stuff to a USB stick or another SATA HDD.
Where I live, we are plagued by frequent, very short duration power outages and these can do enormous damage.
I'd rather power went off for 30-minutes than 30-milliseconds.
The root problem is aging distribution cables and I have now had to invest in four UPSs.
 
You should get a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for your NAS if you have frequent power cuts.......

A low power one suitable for a NAS will not cost too much and should prevent data corruption.

Here's an example (others are available)

Amazon product ASIN B09YDMXF8G
 
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Thanks everyone for getting back to me, will plug away on ebay etc so fingers crossed
If you use testdisk, it will recover data. But you should image your disk 1st so you keep your original disks(s)undamaged.

There is a lunux and a windows version. Windows version does have a gui and is easier to use
I imaged the drive 1st in linux then used the windows version to recover the data from the image i copied from a corrupted disk from a mirrored raid array, where both disks were corrupted in a power outage


It is time consuming to do the data recovery and did take me well over a week running it, to recover the data from a 4tb disk.

If you have a spare disk you can use to store a disk image it may be worth a try.

There is also a test disk forum where you can get advice.

I still run a mirror raid, in my NAS, but now back up regularly to en external drive for additional security.
 
If you use testdisk, it will recover data. But you should image your disk 1st so you keep your original disks(s)undamaged.

There is a lunux and a windows version. Windows version does have a gui and is easier to use
I imaged the drive 1st in linux then used the windows version to recover the data from the image i copied from a corrupted disk from a mirrored raid array, where both disks were corrupted in a power outage


It is time consuming to do the data recovery and did take me well over a week running it, to recover the data from a 4tb disk.

If you have a spare disk you can use to store a disk image it may be worth a try.

There is also a test disk forum where you can get advice.

I still run a mirror raid, in my NAS, but now back up regularly to en external drive for additional security.
Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood but this sw doesn’t seem to recover raid arrays

The op had 4x2Tb spindles in a R5 array.
 
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Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood but this sw doesn’t seem to recover raid arrays

The op had 4x2Tb spindles in a R5 array.
Testdisk will recover data from a raid partition. NAS boxes predominatly use linux O/S even ghough they are hardware raid.

From testdisk website.

Filesystems​

TestDisk can find lost partitions for all of these file systems:

  • BeFS ( BeOS )
  • BSD disklabel ( FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD )
  • CramFS, Compressed File System
  • DOS/Windows FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32
  • XBox FATX
  • Windows exFAT
  • HFS, HFS+ and HFSX, Hierarchical File System
  • JFS, IBM's Journaled File System
  • Linux btrfs
  • Linux ext2, ext3 and ext4
  • Linux GFS2
  • Linux LUKS encrypted partition
  • Linux RAID md 0.9/1.0/1.1/1.2
    • RAID 1: mirroring
    • RAID 4: striped array with parity device
    • RAID 5: striped array with distributed parity information
    • RAID 6: striped array with distributed dual redundancy information
I recovered a raid 1 disk from a WD PR4100, using Testdisk after making an image from linux running on a usb stick.

It will not rebuild the raid, but will allow otherwise unrecoverable data to be recovered.
 
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