georgey

24 minutes ago, GrandPapillon said:

I think WD has some "WIFI drives" which are basically light version of a Synology that can be setup very easily

 

the Synology is a wonderful device but it can be complex to setup because you can do so many things with it, it's really a full network server, not a simple "shared" drive

 

you can even rent one on the cloud and run your "cloud" network for your business with that little device. There are even "free" alternatives to Synology like "OpenMediaVault", but you need to have min IT skills for a DIY enthusiast to setup those. 

Tks vm, I'll look into those alternatives

3 minutes ago, GrandPapillon said:

yep not looking good,

 

Synology are great when you are a DIY enthusiast, but if you have no clue on such things, using a synology with no outside help, let alone be in Thailand with no real IT help, then I suggest you buy a small "portable" 1TB drive and use it as you need it.

 

Why did you need a Synology in the first place?

Yes I take your point about not exactly being able to take advantage of its full capabilities. That said, I have found it very beneficial to be able to control it from my laptop & access it from our other TVs/devices. I think I've had it about 7 years, & it didn't seem expensive then. I just went along with what my friend suggested at the time, & have had, prior to this incident, no reason to regret that decision. I have a few portable drives; I suppose what I need to replace the DS is a wireless external storage device, which I imagine can do exactly what I've been using the DS for (my existing portable drives not being wirelessly controllable). Not sure if those were available back then, that may have been the main reason for the choice.

1 minute ago, GrandPapillon said:

you seem to have a 3TB drive in it, those large drives are usually fragile, hence better to take 2 smaller drives like 1TB each, and setup the "data protection" option in the filesystem when you setup the synology. Who needs 3TB anyway of personal porn anyway when everything is streamed and clouded these days ????

Hahaha. Tku, I'll bear in mind what you said about the size of drive

On 1/24/2021 at 10:00 PM, gargamon said:

I have a DS211j, the 2011 version equivalant to your 2012 model. I no longer use it but for what it is, it works sufficiently well. I subsequently got a 4 disk Synology NAS, but found Synology to be insufficient and recently built one myself. 

 

Your unit has 2 drives and will likely be set up with 1 disk redundancy, where if 1 disk crashes, it can simply be replaced and the system will rebuild it without losing any data.

 

Hard drives spin at a very high rate, and should not be moved when operating, let alone dropped on the floor. Assuming only 1 disk was spinning when it was dropped, likely only 1 disk is toast. Someone needs to log into the NAS and check which disk(s) are crashed. Hopefully you still have the password or can contact the person that set it up to find out what it is. The default username is “admin” and the default password is left blank. Then, depending on what they find, the path to take can be determined. You will obviously need to find someone a bit more technically literate to do this. Hopefully whoever you find has some experience with Synology. If it's only 1 drive bad, replace it with a new one, give it a day or 2 to rebuild the replaced disk and all should be OK.

 

Data from NAS's typically cannot  be recovered the same way as you would from a bad hard drive on your PC or laptop because the NAS has it's own formatting of the data. You cannot take a hard drive from a NAS and plug it into a PC to read the data, so the recovery software used for PC's won't work. My homemade NAS, of course, doesn't have this limitation.

  

Keep us posted as to what you find.

Thank you for all this information, & for taking the time to share your expertise. 

I'm surprised, in spite of what you say, at just how fragile the disk is; it wasn't in use at the time, & the machine wasn't actually dropped, just knocked over.

Unfortunately, it does only have one drive, so the course of action you recommend isn't applicable in this case.

10 hours ago, GrandPapillon said:

ok I see now, the system drive seems to be ok, and yes you have 2 drive inside, disk 2 as it says in the screenshot has crashed

 

Just remove the "volume" and add it back, and it will take care of everything, it might be a soft crash. If you can't "add it" anymore, then it's a hard crash. I could take a look in remote mode if you send me your synology "connect.to" id, which should be setup under "General settings" if I am not mistaken. Might need to take a look on mine just to be sure.

Thank you for your suggestions. 

Unfortunately I can no longer give you remote access as I cannot, now, get into it myself (which of course I could when I took that screenshot). The machine now emits repeated "beeps" when turned on, as opposed to the single "beep" it normally gives when it's finished booting up. It was generous of you to offer to take a look.

It does, in fact, have just one drive. It lives in bay 2 (which is why that screenshot refers to it as drive 2); bay 1 is unoccupied. 

It looks like I'll need to take it to a place which understands the brand, replace the drive, & most likely lose all its data. Luckily some of it, at least, is replaceable.

18 hours ago, teacherclaire said:

Get somebody to open it. The reader might just be hanging and that would be an easy job for somebody who knows what he's doing. 

 

I had an external 1 TB drive where i thought it's expired and the PC didn't recognize it anymore.

 

   Then after taking it out of the cover, I only  needed a little bit of soldering and back to life it was. 

 

  

thank you. I opened it & had a look, & it would appear to my unqualified eye that everything is where it should be

19 hours ago, GrandPapillon said:

the DS212j has a 2 drive bay,

 

something is not clear, where and how did you get that message below? in your Windows box? that doesn't really tell you anything, or it could be a simple network connection issue to the Synology

 

The message under "Suggestion" reads: "Unable to use this volume. The data in the volume may be crashed. Please try to back up the data before removing the volume." Later under "Status" it says simply: "Crashed".

 

This is the screenshot 

1 hour ago, teacherclaire said:

Get somebody to open it. The reader might just be hanging and that would be an easy job for somebody who knows what he's doing. 

 

I had an external 1 TB drive where i thought it's expired and the PC didn't recognize it anymore.

 

   Then after taking it out of the cover, I only  needed a little bit of soldering and back to life it was. 

 

  

Thank you. I was indeed intending to open it; just need to get hold of the right-sized screwdriver.

23 hours ago, gargamon said:

Eeek, does nobody here understand what a NAS is? If this is a multi-hard drive box, and depending on how it was setup, the solution is merely to replace the damaged disk and the system will automatically rebuild. There are built in redundancies for just this issue.

 

So, what is the model number of your NAS? How many drives? What type of raid was it set up as?

Thank you. It's a DS212j - one drive only. As I said I'm totally ignorant about this stuff, the unit was bought for me & set up by a friend who's no longer in the country (otherwise I'd go to him). So RAID is (well) beyond me. Thanks vm again.

On 1/23/2021 at 5:53 PM, GrandPapillon said:

the box being knocked off on the side wouldn't create such a crash unless the drive was already on a failure path

 

I assume there are 2 drives in the synology, and only 1 drive has crashed, try to "reformat" it if you need how to do it

 

if you didn't use HyperBackup on the Synology to sync or cloud your shared folders data, then it's gone

Thank you, only one drive, & not backed up, so not looking great. Appreciate your taking the trouble to help.

Thank you vm.

I just use it for downloading movies etc. & storing photos. Luckily I've had years of trouble-free use out of it, as, as I said earlier, I'm pretty useless at doing anything more than turning it on & off.

The message under "Suggestion" reads: "Unable to use this volume. The data in the volume may be crashed. Please try to back up the data before removing the volume." Later under "Status" it says simply: "Crashed". 

Problem was caused by the box being knocked on its side (not dropped), on a hard surface . I'm surprised how sensitive it is.

Thank you vm for both replies. I think it may have originally come from Fortune Town, I just find the whole place a bit bewildering (not being competent in matters of this nature), so was hoping to get a specific recommendation in order to avoid going to (as per OneMoreFarang's reply) "someone who claims he can do it and he does it wrong". I'll have a closer look at data recovery options. 

Thanks again to you both for your trouble.

My NAS device ("entry level", Synology brand) recently crashed. I am hoping someone might be able to recommend a competent repair person who may be able to recover some of the lost data & do whatever is required to get it operational again. I'm in central Bangkok. 

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Totally agree with those who recommend Indus, strongly disagree re Rang Mahal. Tandoor Suk 11 is quite good, medium expensive. I found Punjab Grill, Suk 13, same building as Radisson Suites, to be quite the best I've had in BKK, possibly anywhere. It's quite expensive. Haven't been since Covid, but it's still open.

20 hours ago, TomLavin said:

I've managed to get another test. Should be fine. I will post here what happens tomorrow...

 

Edit: Thanks for the help ????

My experience at LHR one month ago was that the level of scrutiny of the (many) docs was very low (although like so many other things in the process, this may change). My test was done at 3 pm 3 days before the flight, so strictly speaking 6 & a bit hours too early, & there was no issue. It's all ironic of course, as you'll be surrounded by Thais who don't need a test at all! However, you may have made a good decision to get a later test as it will mean you have one less thing to worry about; I, anyway, found the whole thing very stressful.....

Good luck.

OK.....many thanks again for the helpful replies

Thank you for the replies.

Joe, what you're suggesting sounds like it might be a neat solution. The money hit my account on 2nd Sept., & my extension is due 27th this month. My office is CW. If I understand correctly, if indeed they're prepared to do it this way, this could mean that I could extend on 2nd or 3rd Nov., & only pay fine for 2 or 3 days. Would that be right please? In your experience, would it be best to go there on or around the 27th, and ask them what they'd find acceptable?

My one year extension based on marriage (O) comes up for renewal in a few weeks. As I was overseas for 7 months, I'd rather neglected my Thai account, and had let it run down to a very small balance. When I topped up, I realised I was 5 days late. I'm not expecting any favours from them (much as that would be nice), so would be grateful for any information as to what my options are at this stage. 

I'm in a similar boat to yourself, except that I'm in the North of Scotland. I've already accepted that I'll need to spend at least a couple of nights in London prior to my flight (which is on the 20th). The Randox suggestion from Aussieroaming is v helpful; I called them a moment ago (on the 0800 number) & spoke with someone who took my details & arranged for me to get a call from another person in London. I've now booked an appointment for Thurs to go into their office in Central London & get the sample taken, & I'll get the result within 48hrs. I was told that they'll date the test the date of the flight; all seems quite good, & price £120 is OK (binger's suggestion sounds good but is a bit pricey at £250). As far as fit-to-fly goes, Dr. Dan's price is better than most I've found online - my wife had her's done on the phone recently for £80 (gogodoc - one of those recommended by the Thai Embassy), & she just had to answer "no" to a few questions, all done in about 30 seconds!

thank you for some helpful replies.....

11 hours ago, leither69 said:

What happened to the preflight covid test? Maybe they caught it on the plane

10 hours ago, grumpy 4680 said:

         With all these returnees testing positive for covid, and having been negative before the flights, It makes me wonder if Thailand is using the crappy Chinese test kits, given to them by their friends in China.

The whole point, surely, is that Thais don't have to get tested before the flight, but foreigners do (which was the reason for my post #4). Clearly the American, who'd been tested before the flight, caught it from one of the Thais, because they hadn't been tested. Of course there will be those who suggest he may have got it in the 72h between test & flight. 

Thank you. I suppose that's really the issue - what is my length of stay considered to be? I consider TH, for the time being anyway, to be my home (as it has been for so long already), the Thai government considers otherwise, as I am not a PR. So I wonder if, for this purpose, it will be taken as lasting till the expiry of my present extension (which I intend to extend)? I don't have a date by which I intend to leave TH, as is the case for many or most long-term expats.

I'm hoping to return to TH on one of next month's repatriation flights from LHR-BKK (I understand there will be 3), & would be grateful if someone can tell me for how long I'm required to be covered for insurance against the virus. I'm married to a Thai & my extension expires in November. I have no finite length of stay in mind, having already lived in the country for more than 10 years, & obviously don't have a return ticket to anywhere. I'd like to keep the coverage as short as possible, but of course don't want to risk being denied the COE. I'm guessing the right time period for the cover is going to be one of: up to renewal date of extension (in my case 2 months), or, one year, or, some random period like 3 or 6 months.

Also, while I'm aware that some lists of insurers providing appropriate/acceptable cover were published on TV some time ago, if anyone has more up-to-date info as to which companies are are best for this purpose, it would be very helpful to me.