Recover data from RAID 1 HDDs after NAS failed

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djsat2

Commendable
Nov 28, 2016
5
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1,510
Hello.

My old 2-bay NAS recently failed so i bought another from a a different manufacturer, i sort of presumed i could just take the 2 HDDs out of the failed unit and put them into the new - but didn't believe it would be that easy so only installed one HDD into the new NAS to see what happened. Glad i did as the new NAS' initialization seems to have wiped the HDD!

My question is how do a restore the data from the remaining HDD? I cant view the disk in Win10 and don't want to loose this valuable data. From reading various articles it seems that RAID 1 uses a file system not viewable in Win10? Can someone advise what the next steps should be to recover the data?
 
Solution
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Although the other drive may have been initialized, the data is still likely on the drive, so be sure to set it aside and avoid any further writing to either drive.

Step 1 - get a full sector-by- sector clone of each drive (just in case you accidentally make another mistake)
Step 2 - access the data directly, either by using a linux system or a data recovery program (ie, UFS Explorer or R-Studio)

As the drives were originally in a D-Link NAS, it is likely that the partition is EXT formatted, with a small chance of XFS. Using a bootable live linux USB or CD (Ubuntu or Fedora) will likely just give you direct access to the partition, assuming that it is truly a RAID 1 mirror and there are not significant filesystem or hardware issues...
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DR_Luke

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Dec 1, 2016
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11,160
Although the other drive may have been initialized, the data is still likely on the drive, so be sure to set it aside and avoid any further writing to either drive.

Step 1 - get a full sector-by- sector clone of each drive (just in case you accidentally make another mistake)
Step 2 - access the data directly, either by using a linux system or a data recovery program (ie, UFS Explorer or R-Studio)

As the drives were originally in a D-Link NAS, it is likely that the partition is EXT formatted, with a small chance of XFS. Using a bootable live linux USB or CD (Ubuntu or Fedora) will likely just give you direct access to the partition, assuming that it is truly a RAID 1 mirror and there are not significant filesystem or hardware issues.

But, if you are not so Linux savvy, connecting the clone drive via USB to a windows system and accessing it with UFSExplorer will likely be the easiest route, although you will have to pay for the software after you confirm you can see your files.

Be sure to copy your recovered files to a completely separate hard drive.
 
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Solution
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S Haran

Distinguished
Jul 12, 2013
219
0
18,910
I've worked on similar models and can confirm the DLink DNS uses Linux Software RAID aka mdadm. And the data volume is in Linux ext4 format.

Agree with DR_Luke a Linux boot CD should give you access to your data. If you get stuck or need help I am happy to assist remotely if you like.
 
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djsat2

Commendable
Nov 28, 2016
5
0
1,510
Hello.

Thanks all for you advise above, it has been very useful.

So yes it looks like the drive is in EXT format. I had previously downloaded DMDE which had found the originally directory structure. But tried UFS Explorer also, so i've managed to extra most of the files now onto the new RAID 1 NAS.

An oddity though, a few folders were completely empty, i've not yet found out why or where those files might have gone.
 
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DR_Luke

Honorable
Dec 1, 2016
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11,160
The empty folders could be because you are using the recovery program to recover the two drives back together in a virtual raid. Try looking at each drive separately in UFS Explorer to see if you see the same results. If one drive failed a while back, it would be out of sync, causing inconsistent results when you try to glue it back together.
 
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