recover files from a network hdd (nas) via ethernet ?

[alphason]

Hi,

 

Been having major problems with my WD my book live NAS, not exactly sure what the problem is but been unable to contact WD for any support, web support page does not work and no replies to forum posts (I have a post in WD community forum with all the full details https://community.wd.com/t/mbl-file-to-big-for-file-system-now-lost-folder-help-please/188465/2

 

Anyway I would like to try to recover some files mainly the photos from the drive, the drive only has ethernet no USB, recovery software such as Recuva just do not recognise the drive even if connected directly to pc not through router. Is there anyway to do this, surely there must be somehow? I know I could try to take it apart to get to the HDD but not easy by looking at instructions on the net, but I would then need to somehow connect it to my notebook which I guess means buying a dock (which I don't exactly want to do as I don't know for sure it would work.) The my book live is linux based I think so would a windows pc even be able to read the drive?

 

What I probably need is a friendly english speaker computer shop that understands the problem and can advise, or quickly plug the hdd into there pc to see if the files are recoverable (I am in Phuket).

 

And advice appreciated, thank you.

[Peterw42]

You dont mention what the NAS fault is, does it still appear on network etc. If you can no longer access the HD via Ethernet its pretty straight forward to dismantle (some are broken in the process) the NAS and inside you will find a normal Sata HD that can be put into a USB-sata dock or sata connection inside a desktop. Presuming the HD is not physically damaged and can be accessed, there are tools available for linix recovery. (the drive may even be fat32 format)

 

https://www.diskinternals.com/nas-recovery/

 

http://www.howtogeek.com/112888/3-ways-to-access-your-linux-partitions-from-windows/

Edited December 18, 2016 by Peterw42

[Don Mega]

4 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

You dont mention what the NAS fault is, does it still appear on network etc. If you can no longer access the HD via Ethernet its pretty straight forward to dismantle (some are broken in the process) the NAS and inside you will find a normal Sata HD that can be put into a USB-sata dock or sata connection inside a desktop. Presuming the HD is not physically damaged and can be accessed, there are tools available for linix recovery.

 

https://www.diskinternals.com/nas-recovery/

 

Will that work if the NAS is a raid configuration.

[Peterw42]

3 minutes ago, Don Mega said:

 

Will that work if the NAS is a raid configuration.

 

There are tools that say they can recover from raid etc. If its just a single drive in a NAS, would it be a raid setup ?

[Don Mega]

Just now, Peterw42 said:

 

There are tools that say they can recover from raid etc. If its just a single drive in a NAS, would it be a raid setup ?

 

 

Sorry yes, I was just reading your ionk and answered my own question.

[alphason]

26 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

You dont mention what the NAS fault is, does it still appear on network etc. If you can no longer access the HD via Ethernet its pretty straight forward to dismantle (some are broken in the process) the NAS and inside you will find a normal Sata HD that can be put into a USB-sata dock or sata connection inside a desktop. Presuming the HD is not physically damaged and can be accessed, there are tools available for linix recovery.

 

https://www.diskinternals.com/nas-recovery/

 

http://www.howtogeek.com/112888/3-ways-to-access-your-linux-partitions-from-windows/

 

Thanks no I didnt expalin it all becasue its quite lengthy, if you want the whole story look at my post in the wd community.

 

Yesterday when copying a video file from pc to NAS it gave an error something lile 'file is to big for destination file system', but there was enough free space on the NAS, then suddenly the 'shared videos' folder just disappeared but looking at the capacity of the NAS the files where still there (81.2GB free of 1.8TB),  tried various things but then 'shared photos' went also just before I was going to copy them. I have been able to make a new folder in the NAS and I was able to copy some video files to it, then this stopped working with the same error message as before, but today I am able to copy a few files again. An icon has reappeared for the 2 missing folders, but they are not normal folder icons windows does not know how to open them. Its inconvenient to lose the video files but the photos I would like to try to save as I didnt have copies of them all. I still have a folder 'shared music' which is about 15GB and this is still woking on the NAS. This is the vey basic description of what happened, I tried a few different things (detailed in the WD forum post), I thought I messed it up completely when a firmware update failed to install and the NAS was not connectable at all, but it has rebooted ok this morning.

 

It looks difficult to open the my book live, and I think buying the dock is the only way to connect the drive to my notebook pc? didn't really want to buy a dock unless I was sure it could be done which is why I thought I could take it somewhere to be checked, don;t know if this would be a repairable item from WD? It would help if WD gave some support.

 

Thanks for replies

Edited December 18, 2016 by alphason

[alphason]

I have read a guide on an alternative way to access the NAS drive using SSH and Putty, I have followed the guide and enabled SSH, downloaded Putty and configured it correctly so now I have acces to the NAS this way also  (see https://community.wd.com/t/guide-fix-dashboard-errors-3xxxx/57473

 

Not sure if its any help as I don't exactly understand what I am doing, but there is a command that does a factory reset that (I think) does not erase the files /usr/local/sbin/factoryRestore.sh noreformat But before risking doing that now I have access to the drive using SSH is there a way to find out what is on the drive and be able to copy files back to my WIndows 10 laptop before trying the reset? Looked around and can't find anyhting that I can understand as it seems quite an advanced thing to do for people familiar with linux(??)

 

Thanks.

[Chicog]

Is it NTFS? There is a 2Gb file size limitation on FAT drives.

 

 

[alphason]

16 minutes ago, Chicog said:

Is it NTFS? There is a 2Gb file size limitation on FAT drives.

 

 

 

Thanks no I on't think so, the NAS is linux based I think I read somewhere it uses linux file system EXT. I've been using it for a long time and have transferred many big files sometimes over 10gb (movies).

[johng]

Try the command df which should list the layout of the hard drive you'll see something like /dev/hda1 (could well be different )
Make sure the root partition is not full
Use scfk /dev/sda1 to check for errors in the file system

[alphason]

Thanks, I done the df and copied the screen as a picture as it doesn't allow copy/paste. Not sure really what I am looking at?

scfk /dev/sda1  says "-bash: scfk: command not found"

[johng]

Ok so it looks like /dev/md0 is the root partition and its not full.

Try cd. or cd / to get to top level then
fsck /dev/md0 [ zero not nought]
to check the operating system for file errors.
also fsck /dev/sda4 to check the data partition.

I think I would check the data partition first then reboot and see if things have got better or maybe worse.

Messing with the operating system could be quite risky as you dont have a known good backup of it.

fsck not scfk as I wrote before dooh.

[alphason]

18 minutes ago, johng said:

Ok so it looks like /dev/md0 is the root partition and its not full.

Try cd. or cd / to get to top level then
fsck /dev/md0 [ zero not nought]
to check the operating system for file errors.
also fsck /dev/sda4 to check the data partition.

I think I would check the data partition first then reboot and see if things have got better or maybe worse.

Messing with the operating system could be quite risky as you dont have a known good backup of it.

 

fsck not scfk as I wrote before dooh.



 

 

Thanks for your time,

 

Attached picture shows what I have done so far...

 

I chickened out after the warning as I don't really know what I am doing

 

 

[MJCM]

Contact https://phuket-data-wizards.com/en/index.php. They are in phuket, they can help you.

The owner is a member here, I am not sure about his username. "Gregory" ??

Is it a 2 drive Nas ? If so, then it's Raid 1 and thus the data is mirrored and no need for Raid recovery tools, but as you already found it it's Li/unix based so the Win recovery tools won't help.

[johng]

Ok so best not to mess with /dev/md0   ( operating system ) then....

 

try  fsck /dev/sda4    but I think you'll probably get the same message about the filesystem being mounted

so umount /dev/sda4   or umount  /DataVolume

then try  fsck /dev/sda4    which is where all your data is stored

 

is your NAS protected by a UPS  if not  it would be a very good idea to get one,  the power supply in Thailand can really mess up computers

over voltage, under voltage brown outs black out  on off hundred times an hour  just when the data was about to be written can really mess up the flesystem.

[alphason]

1 hour ago, johng said:

Ok so best not to mess with /dev/md0   ( operating system ) then....

 

try  fsck /dev/sda4    but I think you'll probably get the same message about the filesystem being mounted

so umount /dev/sda4   or umount  /DataVolume

then try  fsck /dev/sda4    which is where all your data is stored

 

is your NAS protected by a UPS  if not  it would be a very good idea to get one,  the power supply in Thailand can really mess up computers

over voltage, under voltage brown outs black out  on off hundred times an hour  just when the data was about to be written can really mess up the flesystem.

 

Ok thanks, glad I stopped before doing that.

I will try what you suggest later if I am feeling brave, if I could just get those photos off the drive somehow that would be a good start and I wouldn;t mid risking trying some other things. I have been contacted now from WD via facebook so will see what if anything they suggest. Also have sent an email to phuket data wizards as suggested to see what they offer.

 

No UPS, If I notice the power giving problems - like the fans slowing down I usually power it down but I get your point and would be wise to have this.

 

Thanks for your advice so far.

[MJCM]

Re: The fans slowing down, could also be because of the Cooling function of the device, if more cooling is required then the fans work harder v.v. But I agree that having a UPS is a very handy thing to have.

[johng]

there is a program called winscp  which has a nice graphical interface like windows( file) explorer

it uses ssh and sftp so you could try that  with no risk ( well don't delete anything )

 

  it needs to know ip address and passwords but you have all that  already

connect and navigate to /mnt      then /DataVolume

then you should hopefully see all your data ( big hope )    then copy files to a new location on your PC/laptop

Edited December 19, 2016 by johng

[alphason]

19 minutes ago, MJCM said:

Re: The fans slowing down, could also be because of the Cooling function of the device, if more cooling is required then the fans work harder v.v. But I agree that having a UPS is a very handy thing to have.

 

Thanks, I meant the desk fans, cooling fans in the house

[alphason]

15 minutes ago, johng said:

there is a program called winscp  which has a nice graphical interface like windows( file) explorer

it uses ssh and sftp so you could try that  with no risk ( well don't delete anything )

 

  it needs to know ip address and passwords but you have all that  already

connect and navigate to /mnt      then /DataVolume

then you should hopefully see all your data ( big hope )    then copy files to a new location on your PC/laptop

 

Thanks that looked promising but in /datavolume /shares /public which is where I think the files should be I can see and open the folders that are still working (Shared Music) but Shared Picture & Shared Videos I can not, same as when I open the drive directly its not a real folder. Had a look around and can't seem to find the files elsewhere.

 

 

[johng]

41 minutes ago, alphason said:

like the fans slowing down

 

Yes thats a brown out voltage down to 50-100 volts very very bad for sensitive electronics.

[johng]

4 minutes ago, alphason said:

Thanks that looked promising

 

Ohh well it was worth a try  I think if you really need the photos back a specialist  like data wizards would now be the safest bet

as the more the drive is used the more chance that the data will be overwritten an then much much harder to recover.

[alphason]

17 minutes ago, johng said:

 

Ohh well it was worth a try  I think if you really need the photos back a specialist  like data wizards would now be the safest bet

as the more the drive is used the more chance that the data will be overwritten an then much much harder to recover.

 

Yes thanks for your help, these data recovery service as good as they may be are out of my budget (I have more time than cash so I don't mind giving things a go). Some of the photos I have but other I would like to save but if they are lost then they are lost - lesson learned.

 

I still have the option of the restore without wiping the drive

https://community.wd.com/t/guide-fix-dashboard-errors-3xxxx/57473 using... /usr/local/sbin/factoryRestore.sh noreforma

 

and your suggestion of fsck /dev/sda4 which is detail in this post https://community.wd.com/t/data-volumes-failed-to-mount/57538/6

 

Not sure which is best to try, least risky? I will also call WD this afternoon but I don't expect much help there. I don't even know if the HDD is damaged or something has just become corrupted, I have about 6 video files now in a folder called new and they have been working ok and the music files are still ok also.

Edited December 19, 2016 by alphason

[johng]

56 minutes ago, alphason said:

and your suggestion of fsck /dev/sda4 which is detail in this post https://community.wd.com/t/data-volumes-failed-to-mount/57538/6

 

if the data recovery is too expensive

I would try  the fsck first  as there is no point doing anything else if you have a corrupt file system 

If you get an error that the superblock is invalid and has a bad magic number  I have never been able to recover from those errors

2 times now with those errors the drive was a goner anyway never able to trust its reliability.

 

once the file system reports clean then do the factory restore.sh

/usr/local/sbin/factoryRestore.sh noreformat

 

and then relink your shares.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2016 by johng

[alphason]

I've been contacted now by WD after they responded to a facebook message, they have first gone through all the basic things but I willl give them a chance to see if they offer any solution, If not I will go ahead and try those other steps. Thanks for all the replies

[alphason]

After a few days of waiting I got the answer from WD, which was more of less its broken, they offered no advice about the SSH only to say if you do it you could break it, they don't do any repairs.

 

They recommended data recovery, 200SGD for inspection, then 1200-2200SGD to do the job !!

 

Anyway, although my old files are still 'lost' the drive has been working ok with the remaining capacity, I have around 5GB 20ish video files that are working for the moment, so it still has some use for me as I use the DLNA twonky server to play the video onto my tv.